Nothing Left
by dfunkt21
Summary: Chloe has the life she always wanted. Not for long, though. Clois, though not centric.
1. Section 1: Bleak Prologue

Part One: Bleak

---- Prologue: Loss

April 9th, 2019

"Hey there, you!"

Chloe reached over and pulled Jacob into her arms, grinning as the five month old gurgled and babbled a bit at her. She got him settled against her shoulder and started bouncing him a little, smiling as he rested his head on her shoulder. "I think you just get cuter and cuter every time I look at you."

"If my son is so cute, why is he still without a second cousin?"

Chloe stopped bouncing Jacob and looked over at Lois, eyebrow cocked as she spoke. "First, when you get married, you bug me about getting married. I'm now engaged, so you can't bug me about it anymore. Now you have a baby and I'm getting grief about _not_ _having one_. When did you become that woman?"

Lois frowned at her, taking a drink of her coffee. "When did I become what woman?"

"The annoying woman that feels her best female friend, or in this case relative, isn't as happy as she is because she doesn't have the same things."

"Hey, I don't..."

"Towards the end of your engagement and right after you were married, every time I told you I had a date you said to make sure he was marriage material! You didn't do that before then!"

"I was just looking out for you, Chlo. You're getting kinda old to just be fooling around with a guy."

Had she not been holding her nephew, or more exactly first cousin once removed, Chloe would have thrown up her arms in disgust. "I'm thirty one! Jesus, you make me sound fifteen years older."

"Your best childbearing years are quickly passing you by, cuz. If you don't act soon, your uterus is going to be a withered husk, unable to host and nurture anything you want to nurture in it."

"Dear lord," Chloe mumbled. She looked away from Lois and switched Jacob over to her other shoulder, where she started drawing little circles on his back with her finger. "Fine. I'll have a baby, but instead of giving birth, I'm going to steal your son, move away and claim him as my own. It'll be very soap opera, but I'll make it work."

"If you had said that when he was refusing to sleep through the night in a very vocal manner, I may have given him to you. Now, not so much. You're good with him, though, and I know you'd be even better with your own."

Chloe was beginning to feel like she could scream in frustration. Lois never stopped with this anymore!

"I _will_ have a baby someday, Lois. Mark and I both want children, but any and all of them will be conceived AFTER the wedding that is three months from now."

"Fine, fine. Ya know, just a random observation here, but have you ever noticed how people that have kids say 'make a baby' and people without kids often say 'conceive a child' or some derivation? Maybe actually having a baby takes the shine off the apple or something. Maybe I'm making a poor observation, who knows. Anyway, on topic, I just want to see you happy."

Chloe smiled at her cousin. "Lois, I'm getting married to an amazing man in July and I'm working at my dream job. I'm freaking giddy about my life."

"Could you at least be visibly giddy? I can never tell, at least not here at work."

"This coming from the woman that has gnawed her way through countless pencils while writing her articles over the years."

"Sullivan! My office, pronto!"

Chloe looked over at Perry, who was already retreating back into his office, before looking back to Lois. "Everybody wants a piece of me today." She slowly and gently transferred the now sleeping infant to his mother and looked over at Clark. "You've been oddly silent. Anything to add before I go?"

"Like my wife, I just want to see you happy. If you're happy now, so am I."

"Isn't a husband supposed to side with his wife, Smallville?"

"I do agree with you because I want her to have what we have. The difference is that I trust Chloe to achieve what she wants and be as happy as we are and have what we have, if that is how she chooses to be happy. We aren't all happy the same way, and seven years ago you'd have laughed in my face had I told you we'd be married and living in the suburbs with a five month old son."

Chloe smiled and patted Lois on the shoulder as she walked. "Have a good argument, you two." Weaving her way through the bullpen traffic, Chloe got to Perry's office and knocked on the door before walking inside. "What's up, Perry?"

"Sit." Chloe slid into a chair, the smile wiped off her face as she noted just how much tension there was in his face. It hadn't been so bad since Lois had come back to work after Jacob had been born. Crossing her legs, she put her hands in her lap and waited patiently for him to speak.

"Lex Luthor is claiming that your exposé on his science division is a fabrication and is threatening to sue the Planet unless we print a retraction and fire you."

Chloe sat forward, eyes wide. "What? I showed you all my information and the legal department said everything looked fine. Let's have them do their job and handle this nonsense."

"The board folded, Chloe."

"What? What do you mean they folded?"

"They're not going to try fighting Luthor on this. The retraction is being printed on the front page of tomorrow's morning edition and... and they're firing you, effective immediately."

Chloe stared at Perry, mouth agape. She felt like somebody twice her size had punched her in the stomach and had taken to squeezing her lungs, just to make a point. After a moment she felt like she could breathe again and spoke. "They fired me?"

"I'm sorry, hun. I've been fighting with every member about this since they told me this morning. They know the readers love your articles, but they don't care and they won't budge."

Chloe stood up, swallowing the bile that was rising in her throat. "It's, uh..." She cleared her throat, giving speech another try. "It's not your fault, Perry. You did what you could, and I appreciate that you fought for me so hard. I, uh..."

Without saying anything else, Chloe walked out of his office, feeling like she was in a God awful nightmare. The world around her didn't feel real. Everything seemed to be kind of hazy, and while she heard people speaking, she couldn't seem to understand anything being said. It was like the world had taken to speaking gibberish as a universal language in the minutes she'd been in Perry's office.

"What happened, Chloe?"

Looking up, Chloe found herself looking at Lois and Clark, who was rocking the baby carrier that held Jacob. She hadn't even realized that she'd been walking anywhere. "Fired," she mumbled.

"What? You're mumbling."

"I got fired." Hands closed in tight fists, Chloe told herself that she wouldn't cry. "Lex claims my exposé is false, threatened legal action and the board decided it would be a whole lot less painful to fire me and print a retraction than fighting." Chloe looked up to find two shocked faces staring at her.

"You're... fired?"

"Seems that way."

Chloe blinked back tears and started towards her desk. A hand took her gently by the arm and she was pulled into an involuntary hug by her cousin. Letting a few tears out would have been extremely satisfying right about then, but if she started she wasn't going to stop. That wasn't something she wanted to be doing in public. She extracted herself from the hug.

"Look, I'm going to go. I... I don't really need to be here anymore."

With a trembling sigh, Chloe grabbed her purse off of her desk, shot a weak smile at Lois and Clark and walked off to the elevator, getting in before the doors could close. The ride down was deafening after the din of the bullpen, and she almost jumped when the bell dinged, indicating the lobby just outside the opening doors.

Bustling out with the few other people in the elevator, she walked through the lobby and out onto the sidewalk. For once, she got a cab after only about thirty seconds of waving them down, and made small talk with the cab driver during the fifteen minute ride, though she was barely aware of what she was saying, only that she was somehow holding herself together.

After paying him and heading into her building, Chloe rode up to her floor and made her way into her apartment. Dropping her bag on the couch as she sat down, she couldn't fight the tears anymore and collapsed into a sobbing heap.

Four Days Later

"This is just what I needed, guys. Sitting in the apartment, staring at the walls and wondering why the universe sucks so much is seriously depressing."

Chloe smiled as she picked Jacob up out of his carrier and pulled him in close to her body, enjoying having the squirmy little boy close. It was a beautiful day outside and being with family made her feel a little better. She'd only been able to talk to Mark a couple times since she'd been fired, as he'd been in Germany on business. Fortunately, he was getting home that night.

Chloe snapped out of her thoughts as she suddenly felt something odd on her chest. Looking down, she found that Jacob was sucking on the side of her boob through her shirt.

"Uh, guys?"

"Yeah, Chlo?"

"I think your son is hungry."

Chloe pulled Jacob away, giving him a quick kiss on the forehead and handing him off to Clark, taking a spit up rag from Lois to dry off her shirt. She shook her head a little as she rubbed the spot into some semblance of dry, though it was still darker than the rest of her shirt. Looking up, she found Lois sitting down next to her.

"Is that what I have to look forward to when I have a baby of my own?"

"Something like that," Lois said. "I would think that it's a much more rewarding when the child is yours and not your cousins. Aside from the fact that I've only ever had my own child sucking on me, it was fairly rewarding. Nice bonding experience."

"One can only hope," Chloe said through a grin as she tossed the rag back to Lois. "I love that little boy of yours, and would do anything for him, but I don't think he's going to get a whole lot out of sucking on me."

"You act like this is the first time it's happened, cuz. I recall you being a popular toy for him to suck on just a few months ago."

"Yeah, well, it hadn't happened in a while and I got used to him not sneak attacking me. Honestly, I don't have a whole lot of experience with babies, but yours is the only one that has ever tried to eat me."

"If you don't have a baby of your own in two years I'll have another just to see that you do get eaten by an infant."

Chloe fought back a laugh at the mental image of a newborn trying to eat a full sized person. She wouldn't put it past a child of Lois and Clark to do some crazy things, but that would really take that cake. "What an odd reason for Jacob to have a little brother or sister."

"Hey, we'd love our child enough to feed you to him or her... this all sounds more cannibalistic than I intended."

Chloe rolled her eyes and stretched her legs out, working a kink out of her thigh with hand. "It did, but I know what you meant. And really, again with the badgering? I thought that I would at least get a small respite, what with all that happened on Tuesday."

"What do you call the last four days?" Chloe leveled a flat look on her cousin, who just grinned at her. "Kidding, Chlo. Consider yourself free of my badgering until your wedding, After that, though, since aunt Moira can't play the part of the mother desperately wanting grandchildren, I've decided to step in for her. You'll never hear the end of it."

"Great. By then I'll be able to look back and say it's just like old times." Chloe sighed dramatically and let herself fall backwards so she was lying on her back, staring up at the sky. "I didn't do that to you, ya know."

"And that's why it was three years until my son was born. If I were to let _you_ wait three years from your wedding just to get pregnant, you'd be thirty five when your first baby was born. There's nothing wrong with that, of course, but I want you working on child number two by then. And hey, maybe we could be pregnant together or something."

"Well, I'm glad that you have my life all planned out for me, but I really wish you'd have told me that being fired from the Planet on bogus charges by Lex was in the mix."

Chloe watched the clouds float by lazily. They looked as peaceful as she had felt, up until Lois had started in on her 'plans for Chloe's life' spiel. She loved her cousin like she was her sister, but at some point she was going to have to let things go. Hopefully. Did that pitbull on a pant leg thing apply to things like this?

"That wasn't technically part of the plan, Chlo. In my version, you were still working there while gestating kid number two, not to mention the first. Plus, your firstborn was going to be a girl named Jane. She can still be named that, of course."

"Oh, good lord," Chloe said as she sat up and looked at Lois. "You've named my first kid for me? Had I the ability, I would just hand you my life so you can live it for me. I'll pick it up when I'm eighty or so."

"That seems melodramatic."

"To avoid such things, how about we leave living Chloe's life to Chloe, eh? It's not perfect, but it's what I have and I find myself strangely attached to it. You're just going to have to live with me living my own life my own way."

"Alright, alright." Lois held up her hands in a surrendering manner. Chloe didn't believe one bit of the gesture. "Consider my badgering done as of this moment. But once you're married..."

"Thanks, _mom_," Chloe said as she scratched her ear. "Why Jane?"

"I don't know. I seem to really like J names, if Jacob is any indication."

Chloe shrugged. "I'm not really sure that Jane Roe works. Maybe with the right middle name... gah! Why am I even thinking about this?"

"Because I, Lois Lane Kent, am a very good influence on you."

Chloe heard a chuckle and looked over at Clark, who was still holding Jacob while he ate from a bottle. "You're certainly an influence, Lo, but I think any and all good influence ends with Jacob. Your influence on Chloe ends up with her in nearly as much trouble as you usually get into."

"That is _so_ not true... and if it is, really isn't the point."

Chloe leaned against a baggage carousel, checking her watch again. All these years and planes were still late to their destinations on a regular basis.

She scanned the area, spotting numerous other people standing around and waiting. It was like this was every time she came to pick up Mark. Usually his flights came and went during business hours and he took a cab, but on the odd occasion he was traveling at night or on the weekend and she hadn't been pulled into anything by Lois, she liked greeting him at the airport. Meeting him at the airport meant they got to the welcome home sex a whole lot sooner, and he was usually extra affectionate when they hadn't seen each other.

Chloe stood up straight and stretched her shoulders out, yawning as she did so. The day seemed to have taken forever just to get to this point. If she hadn't done the picnic with Lois, Clark and Jacob, she may have passed out from boredom.

Looking up again, Chloe smiled as she spotted Mark walking towards her. Deciding to meet him halfway, she moved from her spot and walked towards him, wrapping him in a hug when they met and getting the same back. They pulled apart and he leaned down, kissing her softly.

"Hey there."

"Hey there to you too," she said. "How was Germany?"

"I prefer it during Oktoberfest. How are you doing?"

"After two days of crying my eyes out and one of intermittent sobbing, I've been more or less tear free today and am starting to feel better now that you're here with me."

"I'm sorry that I couldn't be here when you needed me."

"You can't help that you were out of town, Mark. You're here now, and I'm happy with that."

After getting his bag, they walked out to the car hand in hand. The ride home took on a comfortable silence. Chloe found a parking spot in front of their building and took it, and they started discussing his trip as they walked in. She noticed he was frowning as they rode up in the elevator, despite the fact that everything he said was good for him and the company he worked for.

"Is everything alright, Mark?"

"What?"

"You're frowning, and not in your usual manner, but in the way you do when you have something you feel you have to do but think it's going to be the most unpleasant thing ever."

His frown melted into a smile. "You really know me, don't you?"

"I hope so, because I love you. Chloe said the last part over her shoulder as they walked out of the elevator and to their door. "So, what's so distasteful that it has you all frowny?"

After he mumbled a response about it being nothing, Chloe unlocked the door and led him inside, hanging her jacket up in the closet as she heard Mark lean his bag up against the wall and close the door.

"So, per usual these days, Lois has been all over me about us starting a family. How about we practice for a while just so I can tell her I remember how it's done, eh?" Chloe waggled her eyebrows at him, grinning lasciviously.

He smiled at her for a second before it melted and he looked away, sighing visibly. Her grin died as it struck her something might be really wrong. "I need to tell you something, Chlo."

"What's going on?"

Chloe sat down on the couch as she watched Mark rub a hand over each cheek and back onto his neck. He stood like that for a second, looking at her. "I'm... leaving."

"Leaving? Leaving where?"

"Not where... you."

Air. Where had all the air in the room gone? It had been there a second ago, because she'd been breathing it. Now it felt like she couldn't breathe. She liked breathing, for Christ's sake! When it finally felt like her lungs were working again, she was able to whisper a word. "Why?"

"I don't..." She heard him swallow and looked up. "I don't love you."

Oh God. Tears stung at her eyes and she blinked them away, not breaking eye contact with him as he started speaking again.

"I wanted to. God, you have no idea how hard I tried to love you, Chloe. I thought that if I said it enough, I would believe it, ya know? I thought that if I asked you to marry me that would do it, because you were so good to and for me. But I never did. I just... couldn't. Then I met Laura and I knew, just _knew_ that I loved her. I didn't believe in love at first sight until I met her."

Again. She was losing a man she loved to another woman again. For a moment she felt her sadness evaporate under the heat of her anger. She stood up and walked over to him.

"Why the hell aren't I good enough? What's so damn lovable about this Laura that I don't have?"

"I don't know. I've thought about it every day for the past eight months and..."

"Eight months? You've been leading me on for eight months? No, not eight months, because you didn't fall out of love with me. You've wasted two and a half damn years of my life!"

He winced as he spoke. "I'm sorry, Chloe."

"Sorry? Well, that solves everything! Get out!"

"Chloe, I..."

"Get the fuck out, Mark, or I will kick your ass and throw you out. If that starts, not even Superman will be able to pull me off you before I'm done." Chloe had achieved a lot more calm than she thought she'd be able to with that statement, and that seemed to affect Mark more than the yelling had. He silently backed away, grabbed his bag and left.

She stood in her living room, seething and looking at the door, willing it to open again so she could beat the hell out of him. That would be the most satisfying thing in the world at the moment. After a few minutes, the anger started to fade and pain started coursing through her. Every time she got close to a man, she wasn't enough.

Her knees wobbled as she walked over to the couch and she was sitting down, she was wracked with sobs.

"Chloe? Chloe, are you in there?"

Raising her head up off the couch, Chloe blinked a few times before sitting up. She ran a hand through her clumpy hair before standing up and walking over to the door. She unlocked it and turned around, walking back to the couch. She heard the door open and close as she sat down, but didn't bother to look over and see who was coming in.

"What the hell's going on, Chlo? We were supposed to meet for breakfast four hours ago!"

Chloe didn't respond, finding staring at her sky blue wall to be a much more rewarding experience. She felt the couch shift a little as the intruder got a little more intrusive.

"Yo, little blonde cousin, what's going on? You've blown me off basically never. If this is about me playing the annoying family member urging you to procreate, I'm sticking to my promise of not doing anything until after the wedding."

Feeling her lip tremble, Chloe shut her eyes and willed herself to be strong. She'd faced meteor powered crazies without crying, so heartbreak of the personal variety should be a piece of cake, dammit! It's not like she was losing her dream job or anything, just her dream of a happy future. No big loss there.

"Hey, where's Mark? He out getting food to help you recover from all the welcome home sex I assume you two had last night? I'm not excusing you blowing me off, but if you did it because you had to recover from a full night of passion, well, you know I've been there."

When Lois grinned over at her, she sighed and looked away. "He left."

"Where'd he go?"

"Don't know. He left for good. He left _me_."

She looked back over at Lois and watched her eyebrows climb up her forehead as she processed what she'd heard. "He... what... he LEFT you?"

"That, or he decided practical jokes are funny when they're incredibly mean."

"But why?"

"The usual. He didn't love me during the entirety of our relationship because, ya know, I'm unlovable." Chloe swiped away a tear that was making its way down her cheek. "Oh, and here's the best part: he fell in love with a woman named Laura about eight months ago while he was trying to force himself to love me. Love at first sight, apparently. Probably with her right now."

Chloe was surprised at how lacking in bitterness that had sounded when it felt like it should be dripping with bitter, forming a little pool of bitterness beneath it. She felt an arm wrap around her head and had it pulled onto Lois's shoulder. It seemed uncalled for, really. She was doing just fine, not crying and...

That was when she realized she was crying again. She hugged herself to Lois and started sobbing into her shoulder, barely realizing what she was doing. She felt like a little kid going to her mommy for comfort after she'd scraped her knee playing. Jesus, she was a mess. Her whole damn life was a mess.

"Everything is going to be alright, Chloe. I promise, everything's going to be alright."

Chloe lifted her head up off her cousin's shoulder and laughed sadly. "My dream was shattered five days ago and the rest of the future I was planning got pulverized last night, Lois. I have nothing left."

"You've got family, Chloe. You have me, you have Clark and you have Jacob. You have your dad! Go spend some time with him and don't think about Metropolis for awhile. We'll visit you and make sure current events don't pass you by too much. I think you could use the peace and quiet of the country right about now instead of the bustle of the city.

"Then there's my dad, Lucy and Jimmy, even Pete and Lana. I don't even understand how those last two couples work, but I know they'll be there for you if you need them. We're all here for you, whatever you need, whenever you need it."

"Thanks. Family's good to have, now more than ever. I love you, Lo."

"And I love you, Chloe."

One Week Later

Chloe forced her eyes to look beyond what they wanted to focus on, instead settling them on the blue, cloudless sky. It was a beautiful day; warm, with a decent breeze, it almost felt more like June than April.

Her eyes scanned over to some trees, green leaves starting to fill out the branches of some late bloomers, with the evergreens still standing tall next to them, looking like the seasons didn't exist. The branches swayed with the breeze, and she felt her hair shift on her neck as it passed her.

Chloe inhaled through her nose, letting the scent of the day overtake her as her eyes slid shut. The day smelled fresh, new and promising. She figured every day smelled new, since it only happened once, she didn't think she'd ever smell anything promising again.

"I don't know what one is supposed to say here. Bon voyage? Happy trails? I know how much you liked Westerns so it seems like it might be appropriate, but it isn't enough. I guess what it comes down to is the fact that I've never been as good at speaking as I am at writing. When I sat down to write something, though, I found myself without words.

"For me, an experience like that is like walking off a cliff where there's always been land. You don't look, you just walk, and then you're falling. Word's being put on paper were one of the few things in my life that I could always count on, along with you. But with their failure, I've found myself standing here and adlibbing a speech I've always hoped I would never really have to make. I didn't want to go first, but I just didn't want to have to do it. Who does? I still can't believe you managed to pass while I was there."

Chloe sighed and rolled her eyes at herself. She rubbed her left shoulder as she started speaking again.

"Death is such an odd thing. It's pretty much the most final thing in the world, and a concrete reality. But death also gives way to such abstract concepts as the afterlife, reincarnation and the eternal nothing. It's one of the places science can't touch, putting it distinctly in the realm of faith. I've never been good with faith; there's no proof, and as a journalist, I make a living of finding proof. It makes trying to believe in something intangible difficult, for me at least."

Running a hand through her hair, she found herself annoyed that she had wandered so far from the topic at hand. What the hell did her view on faith have to do with any of this? She sighed before returning to what she was saying.

"I'm sorry I don't have any tears left for you, dad. I'm sorry I can't mourn you like a daughter that loved her father should, however that may be. I just don't have anything left in me. My tear ducts are dry and sorrow has become my second skin. I don't notice it anymore.

"I love you. The way things are going, I may see you sooner rather than later. The way things are going, that may be a blessing. Morbid, but true." Chloe bent down and placed a rose on her father's casket, then straightened back up. "I love you, dad, and I miss you. I hope you've found the peace that seems to elude us here on Earth."

Chloe turned from the casket and grave, walking away with her jaw clenched tightly. Her eyes flicked to Lois and Clark, who were standing off to the side a bit. Stopping, she turned her head and looked over at them. Lois had her head leaned against Clark's shoulder for a second before she stood up straight. Even twenty feet away, she could see the shine of a tear in Lois's eye, and it just made her own emptiness more wearing.

She turned around and walked away from Lois and Clark, staring straight ahead at all the nothing she had left.


	2. Section 1: Bleak Chapter 1

---- Chapter 1: The Invisible Wheel

July 19th, 2019

"Miss Sullivan?"

Chloe stood up and plastered on a smile as she was ushered into an office, shaking hands with the man that was interviewing her. He looked like he was sixteen, for Christ's sake. What the hell was he doing running a company? She followed him through his office and sat down in one of the chairs as he sat down behind his desk.

"I'm Blake Stanton. Just to start, why don't you tell me what got you interested in the field of internet security."

"Up until a few months ago, Mr. Stanton, I was a journalist, actually. Since I was in high school, though, I've been using computers and the internet to go that extra mile and get the evidence I need to finish a story or turn somebody in to the police. Over the years, I've learned a lot about how to attack security systems, and now I'd like to turn that knowledge into a new career of protecting your systems."

"If you don't mind me asking, why did you leave journalism? It's a much more stable and steady job than jumping into a small tech company."

Chloe sighed. She'd missed out on a lot of jobs because of what she had to say on this topic. People were afraid to get on the wrong side of the wrong people. She'd become very accustomed to showing herself out after this little speech.

"I printed a story on Lex Luthor that was verified by my editor and the legal department, but when he threatened action against the paper, the board decided not to fight and fired me. When it comes to Lex Luthor, even the truth isn't enough to keep you safe."

The man, if he actually qualified for having that title, sat back in his chair and eyed her a second. "You're the Chloe Sullivan that got fired?"

"I am."

"Your article opened my eyes to who Lex Luthor really was. When they fired you, I cancelled my subscription because it was total bullshit, if you'll excuse my language. I still catch the occasional Lane and Kent article online, but the Planet no longer gets any of my money."

While flattering, that kind of thing didn't get her a job. Hopefully it wasn't hurting her chances. "Thank you. If one person saw the scum that is Lex Luthor in a new light because of my article, then it did the job it was meant to do."

"I think you had more support than just me, Miss Sullivan. Your former paper really took a credibility hit when it printed that retraction, with the pro Lex people thinking they'd print anything and the anti-Lex people knowing you'd been screwed."

"I appreciate you saying that, but I don't think it made much difference to anybody. The nature of newspapers these days is to take the good with the bad if they're going to compete with the instant availability of stories online. It's sad, but true."

"I agree. Alright, so back to the task at hand. Unfortunately, with no prior experience and all your skills having come from admittedly illicit actions, I can't hire you for this job, no matter how much I want to. Even owning the company doesn't make it a good business decision."

Chloe stifled a sigh and plastered on her smile again. "I appreciate you taking the time to see me. Good luck with your company."

"Thank you. I hope you have better luck in the future."

Chloe nodded and smiled once more before standing up and leaving the office. Better luck. She had no luck left. Luck had run out for her about the time her life had become a living nightmare. She hailed a cab, and after a few had passed her by she got in one that finally stopped, telling the driver her building address. Sitting back, she blankly watched the city pass by.

In the three months since her world had imploded this had been her life, at least in Metropolis. Cab ride to an interview, being told she didn't get the job or was virtually not hireable because of what had happened with Lex and a cab ride home. At first most of the interviews had been in different cities at various newspapers. Unfortunately, news traveled quickly and nobody wanted a victim of Lex Luthor, whether they believed the story was a fabrication or not.

Most of those meetings had been a courtesy and nothing more. Gotham had been her real hope; the Batman was fascinating, and having some extensive background in super heroes and secret identities, she thought she might have been able to figure him out. Once more, though, the editor had been well aware of her predicament, and had not wanted to piss off management. It had been the same in New York, Los Angeles, Dallas and seven or eight other cities. They liked her work, but they didn't like the recent history and weren't sure if they trusted her..

Magazines had been the same as papers. They either didn't trust her to write a truthful story or they didn't trust Lex not to put them in a bind because they'd hired somebody he'd claimed was a liar. Tech jobs were the recent thing, but those interviews either didn't last because of the Luthor name or because she had no education remotely related to any technology. Apparently that was just as important as just being good at it, these days.

After paying the cab driver, Chloe got out of the car and looked at her building. After three weeks, she still couldn't help but sigh at the rundown place she now lived. She walked inside and took two flights of stairs up to the hole of an apartment she now lived in. She unlocked the door and walked inside, crossing the five feet between her door and the bed before flopping down on the creaky thing.

The brunt of her belongings were in the basement of the suburban home Lois and Clark now owned. Chloe's hole had a bed, a bathroom and a fridge that barely qualified as mini, it was so small. There was a small stove, but since it had yet to work it just took up space.

Had she any other choice, she wouldn't have moved there. For years she'd been helping her father pay medical bills because insurance companies hadn't wanted to touch him after he'd had a heart attack. When he'd died she'd found out that he hadn't had any life insurance, and she'd ended up footing the majority of the nine thousand dollars it had taken to give him a funeral. Combined with the money she'd already spent on a wedding that didn't happen and her trips across the country to get rejected, her savings had disappeared faster than Clark could fly. Very much longer, even in her current residence, and she was going to have to get any job she could to make ends meet.

Pinching the bridge of her nose for a second, Chloe let go and got up, walking to her fridge, opening it up and pulling out a beer. She popped it open and promptly downed half of it, closing her eyes as it settled in her empty stomach. It would be easy to drink herself into a stupor and forget yet another empty day in her empty existence, but she had dinner with the Kent's to attend, along with the Olsen's and the Ross family.

Oh, the joy of being the seventh wheel. Whenever Pete and Lana came in from Topeka everybody got together to have a big meal. She'd really enjoyed them when she'd had a job and Mark to go with her. It saved her from being the one everybody looked at and felt sorry for, especially now that they were all having kids. Lucy was currently working on her first, which she and Jimmy had announced about two weeks before, and Pete and Lana already had two, PJ and Richie. With Lois and Clark having Jacob, everybody was turning into one big happy family. Yay.

Taking another swig of her beer, Chloe sighed as she remembered that Lois had taken it upon herself to brighten her life up. Since they usually ate dinner together, be it at a restaurant or them picking her up on the way out to their house, Lois had ample opportunity to try and make her life suck less. She had yet to succeed, and listening to the lame and cliché attempts Lois was making had Chloe fighting the urge to drink herself oblivious more often than she did.

The most recent tactic Lois had taken up was trying to get her to go out on dates. Ha! She had no job, lived in a glorified hole and had no idea what was going to happen next to make miserable seem a happy memory. The stress of dating would most likely put her in a six month coma, if not just kill her outright. The coma was preferred, as she felt she could use the rest and retreat from life.

Chloe finished her beer and pulled another out of the fridge, opening it and taking another big swig. Looking down at herself, she found that she was still in her dress and slipped it off, moving a few feet so she could dig through her bag of clean clothes that she'd washed at the home of her suburbanite cousin. She pulled out a pair of jeans, but tossed them on the bed and pulled out a pair of shorts instead, in case they spent time outside, and slipped them and a plain white t-shirt on.

Sitting down on the bed, Chloe considered her options. She didn't have her television, so that was obviously out of the question. If she wanted to use the internet she'd have to go somewhere that wasn't her building since somehow she'd accidently found the only uncovered spot in the city's wi-fi system.

It was that kind of thing that seemed like it could only happen to her. Every move she made was wrong. Every action she took went wrong. Everything she touched turned from gold into lead.

Looking at her watch, she found that it would still be a couple hours before Clark and Lois came by to pick her up for the big dinner. She took a sip of her beer before setting it down and going back over to her clothes, pulling out a better looking shirt. She pulled off the t-shirt she'd put on and pulled on the less ragged of the two. She grabbed her beer again and downed most of it, not able to finish it because of the cold against her teeth.

A moment later it was gone, the can tossed aside as she grabbed her purse and walked out of her apartment. If she sat in there the until her ride came, she would either be drunk or out of beer, possibly both, and neither seemed acceptable.

Walking down the stairs and out of the building, Chloe headed towards a cheap diner she'd found a couple blocks away. The food was less than stellar, but it did the trick for somebody on a meager budget. Every time she ate there she wished for a bigger budget so she could be somewhere else, but she had to take what she could get. This would be an inexpensive trip, if nothing else. Since she'd be doing dinner with the family and friends in a few hours, she could probably just get a basket of fries to settle her stomach after she'd put down two beers in fifteen minutes.

A few minutes later Chloe was walking into the diner, the place simply going by the name 'Marv's Place,' and sat down on a stool in front of the main counter. A portly man with only wisps of hair left on top of his head walked out from the back and came over to her.

"How ya doing, Chloe?"

She gave him a tight lipped smile. "Had better days, Marv. I'll just take a large basket of fries and a cup of coffee."

"You got it."

After pouring her a cup of coffee, he walked back behind the doors and Chloe gave the rest of the store a quick glance, finding a man sitting in the corner, hunched over and nursing a glass of something. She looked away from him and back at the wall behind the counter. It was decorated with nothing but the occasional splotch where something or other had hit and left a stain. The off white of it, covered in the brownish splotches, really made it feel like the worst dive she'd ever been in.

Chloe took a drink of her coffee, feeling it run down her throat as the warmth radiated from inside her for a second instead of pressing in on her from the summer heat. She studied her hands for a moment, noticing how they'd changed over time. Her veins seemed to protrude more; not in the way she had noticed on her grandparents hands when she was a kid, but in a way that made her hands look older than she thought they should.

Chloe smiled at Marv as he placed the basket of fries in front of her, thanking him before digging into her snack. They didn't seem to last long. Maybe she'd been hungrier than she'd thought; all she'd had to eat before the interview had been a bowl of dry cereal, and that had been four hours before she'd even bothered getting dressed.

Tossing a five on the counter, she downed the rest of her coffee and walked outside, wincing as the sun hit something shiny and reflected directly in the eyes. Turning away from it a bit, she stared at the stretch of road ahead of her. She could walk towards the Planet, catching a cab eventually, or she could head back to her apartment and sit, staring at the walls and probably drinking the rest of her alcohol.

While that sounded like fun, it wouldn't make for the best evening with the Ross clan in town. Being drunk when Lois and Clark showed up to take her out to the suburbs would just make things more complicate than necessary, no matter how much fun it sounded.

Figuring she could spring for a cab ride into the city, Chloe got one to stop for her a moment later and told the driver to take her to the Daily Planet Building. The driver didn't say much as they went so Chloe just stared out the window. It always surprised her at how abruptly the city skyscrapers started. One minute you were driving, surrounded by five or ten story buildings, then you blink and almost everything has thirty to fifty floors. It was dizzying when it caught her unawares.

Chloe got out of the cab and headed into the building, nodding at a couple people she knew as she walked to the elevator and getting inside with a group of people. The ride up was pleasant, if not quiet, and when she got out the all to familiar buzz of the bullpen hit her in the face. Nostalgia welled up inside her, but she pushed it away; she'd been here since her firing a few times, and she didn't miss it any less than she had those first few days away.

Making her way through the room, she smiled as people recognized her and waved, even going so far as to wave back to a few people. She got to Lois and Clark's desks, but found them to be empty. Frowning, Chloe headed to Perry's office and knocked.

"Come in!"

Chloe opened the door and walked in, smiling genuinely for the first time that day. "Hey, Perry."

"Chloe, it's good to see you." He pointed at a chair. "Have a seat." When she sat down, he started speaking again. "What brings you by the office?"

"I was looking for Lois and Clark, actually. I haven't called them yet, and I wanted to see if you knew where they were before I set one of their phone's off in the middle of a press briefing or an interview."

"Feels like old times, really. Lois ran off with some half cocked notion about a story and where she could find some evidence, and Clark took off after her."

"Did she have Jacob with her?"

"No, she said he was spending the day with his grandmother today. That's why it felt like old times, really. I've gotten used to Lois thinking most things through since she usually has the little man with her. Boy seems to calm her down."

Chloe smiled. "He does. He seems to have that effect on most people, though."

"Good things in his future, I bet. With genes like Lois's he'll make a hell of a reporter one day."

"I think Clark may have something to do with that, too, Perry."

"Don't get me wrong, Kent is a good reporter. He's still a little timid in his questions when somebody is having some personal tragedy, but partnering him with Lane was the best thing that could have happened for the two of them. She makes him more aggressive and he makes her less liable to get killed. Most of the time, anyway."

"Yeah, they make a good team. I was a little skeptical at first, but sometimes things are just meant to be. They make each other's lives shine, and that's a rare treat in the world we live in."

Perry sat back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest, nodding his head. He reached over and pulled a cigar out of one of his drawers, leaving it unlit as he held it. He looked up at her and wiggled the cigar a bit. "Would you like one?"

"Well, I don't..." Chloe stopped herself, frowning. She didn't have anything to do except wait for her cousin to come back, and she didn't feel like walking around and looking at all the things she couldn't afford. She reached over and took the cigar Perry offered. "Not much of a smoker, but what the hell."

"What the hell indeed. Since I quit drinking during my stint in Smallville all those years ago, cigars have become a nice little stand in every once in a while." He flipped open a lighter and held it out for her. She leaned over and puffed on the cigar a bit until it was lit, blowing the smoke out of the side of her mouth as she watch Perry light his.

"I've only ever smoked a cigar two times in my life, one being good and the other bad. The first was when I got promoted up out of the basement to work as a real reporter and not a permanent obit writer. It was a cheap piece of shit, but I didn't know any better and just wanted to say I had celebrated an accomplishment by smoking a cigar. It's one of those things in life that everybody seems to have a story about, whatever the situation was. I felt like I should embrace the cliché for once.

"The second was when Lois and Clark got married; she and I each had one to reflect on our lives near the end of the reception. That one was good. It surprised me that Lois actually smoked one, considering she's a former cigarette smoker and always said she was one good drag from smoking two packs a day. That night she told me she wouldn't start again, though, because nothing in the world could be more addictive than loving Clark Kent."

She heard Perry laugh and puffed again, blowing smoke out in a thin stream between pursed lips. "That might just be the most poetic thing I've ever heard Lois say, and she's said some pretty sappy and poetic things ever since she had Jacob."

"Yeah, that little guy has really changed her. I don't think she's even really realized it, and if she has she certainly hasn't said anything about it. Usually she's just gushing about him doing this or that for the first time, and while I enjoy hearing about it, I kind of miss the old Lois that cussed like a sailor and found thinking things through got in the way of getting things done. I actually tried to be like her in that respect, when I was in high school and more or less the lone reporter for a high school paper.

"I would throw myself into ridiculous situations, trying to think less and act more. Most of the time it worked out, but she's much better at it than I could ever hope to be. It seems like one of those things that just has to come naturally."

"Being a parent changes you, Sullivan."

"So I'm told," Chloe said around the cigar as she slouched in her chair a little.

"You seem able and eager to talk about Lois and her life. What's been going on in yours?"

"Are you actually interested?"

"Believe it or not, I am. Why do you think I offered you a cigar? I don't do that for just anybody. You were good here, and were a solid challenge on your own for the team of Lane and Kent at times. Until Kent came along, you had Lane beat when it came to the technicalities of writing, but she just had that ability to throw herself into something and come out with a story, like you said. So, how's life treated you recently? I know what happened right after the Planet fired you, but I haven't heard much since."

Chloe sat back up in her chair, pulling the cigar from between her lips to knock some ash off the end of it. "You're probably better off not knowing, Perry, unless you feel like being depressed."

"It takes a lot to depress me, Sullivan, or else I wouldn't be in the news business."

"Fair enough. I can't get a journalism job anywhere. I'm not qualified for anything else, so try as I might for jobs in the tech sector, where I could put my computer skills to use, everything seems to be out of reach. I had to move from my nice apartment into what barely counts as an apartment a good twenty minutes from here. And finally, it seems inevitable that soon I'll probably be working a minimum wage job just to pay for my craphole."

She sighed around her cigar and she puffed again. "This has been my depressing life in thirty seconds."

They sat in silence for a little while after that, and Chloe didn't blame Perry for not saying anything. What the hell do you say to all that crap? She'd yet to hear anything other that 'Wow, that sucks!' and she'd only heard that once. More often than not her life struck people dumb. More often than not it struck her upside the head. Chloe took one last long puff and blew out the smoke, placing what remained of her cigar down in the ashtray, sighing. She stood up, giving Perry one last smile.

"Yeah, so, I'm gonna get out of here and let you work. Two more minutes and you'll be grumbling about something or other anyway, so let me get out of the way so it can happen without interference. If you see Lois and Clark, tell them I'll be back a half hour before their usual end of the day."

Chloe walked away before he could respond, making her way through the bullpen without so much as a glance at another person. The ride down on the elevator was silent, though she was greeted with an abundance of noise when she exited the building out onto the street. She checked her watch, finding it to be four thirty. Making her way along with the flow of foot traffic, Chloe ducked into a nearby bar and walked up to the bartender. She pulled a ten out of her purse and tossed it onto the bar.

"How much can I get for that?"

"Four shots of really cheap tequila."

Chloe gave him a thumbs up and soon was holding four shots as she walked to a table in the back. Sitting down, she put the shots on the table and eyed them for a second before grabbing the nearest and downing it. She grabbed another and downed it right after, shaking her head as the taste finally made its presence known.

She sat back, closing her eyes and waiting for the buzz to hit her. It had to be better than talking to an old boss about how much her life sucked. She was glad that he cared but telling people about what had happened to her was old, and it sucked. It sucked hard. Yay for people caring, boo for having to tell the same shit over and over again whilst feeling her life push in on her more and more with every telling.

Not feeling the buzz yet, Chloe waited another couple minutes then took another one of the shots, hoping to speed up matters. She didn't want to get drunk, but she wasn't driving and it felt like she was at least steeling herself for all the crap she was going to have to endure at dinner that night.

A few minutes later she was smiling, her life feeling a little less like shit than it had not long ago. She knew it still sucked, but now she cared a little less. She sat there in silence for the next half hour, listening to people come in and start filling the place for happy hour. She finally took her last shot and just enjoyed the sound of the day, feeling her thinking dull a little more. She sighed contentedly and let the time pass her by, no longer focused on what was going on with her life. It felt good to not think.

After a while Chloe checked her watch and noticed the time. Sighing, she got up and felt the world waver a little. Apparently she hadn't had enough food earlier to fight the alcohol fully. Steadying herself, Chloe left the bar and walked back towards the Planet. When she got there, she wandered into the elevator and looked at the floor buttons that had been pushed, finding the one she already wanted lit up.

The ride up seemed to go more quickly than usual and she grinned as she walked off the elevator. It was quieter than it had been earlier, as she found it emptier than it had been. It was a lot easier walking over to the desks she aimed for, and she found the people she was looking for there this time.

"Hey guys!"

"Chloe? I thought we were picking you up."

"You were, but my apartment sucks, so I came here instead. Was here earlier, actually, but you were not. Smoked a cigar with Perry and then I went and wet my whistle, so to speak. Better afternoon than I usually have." She smiled at Lois, who was frowning.

"How much did you have to drink?"

"I spread four shots out over about half an hour. Well, I had two pretty quickly and the other two spread out. I'm not drunk, if you're asking, just a little buzzed. Now, instead of being a big downer at the shindig tonight, I'll be happy as a clam! At least until I eat something."

"You didn't really need to do that, Chloe. You're not a big downer when we get together."

"No? Maybe it's just me then, because every time somebody asks me how my life is going I feel like pure shit. Instead of being able to enjoy the time I have with my friends I end up feeling sorry for myself all night. Instead of having three seconds of happiness I feel the eyes of everybody else on me, pitying poor Chloe and her asstastic life. I'm sick of pity being the only thing people have for me besides sadness."

Pausing, Chloe pointed at Lois. "See! Right now, you've got that look of 'God, I wish I could help her feel better about things' that I've seen you have so many times through the years." She turned and looked at Clark, shaking a finger at him. "You're not saying anything, but I recognize your look, too. It's your 'I want to help by listening' look. Don't worry Clark, I've bent your ears with my problems so many times over the years that I owe them some time off."

"My ears are strong, Chloe. They don't need any time off, not from you if you need to talk about things."

"I appreciate the sentiment, but there will be no talking tonight. Well, not until we see everybody else, anyway. For now, I'll sit in silence and wait for you guys to finish up what you're doing." Chloe moved over and fell back into a chair, eyes widening in surprise as it rolled backwards a little. When it stopped, she giggled and used her legs to pull herself forward back towards Lois and Clark. Maybe she was more than a little buzzed. "So, what were you guys working on today?"

Chloe zoned out as Lois and Clark explained their story. She wished she'd have gotten another shot so that she really could have been drunk. Twenty minutes after she got something in her stomach she'd sober up, if not before that. Stupid tolerance. But there would be wine, or maybe beer. There was always some alcohol at these things. That was going to help. She might not be drunk tonight, but she could spend it in a blissful buzzed haze.

Soon they were in the car and driving to the suburbs. Chloe barely watched the scenery, focusing more on what was going on inside the car. Sitting in the back seat on the passenger side with her feet up on the drivers side, Chloe could see Lois's lips barely moving, as if she were talking. Frowning, she watched as they continued to move, then looked up at the rear view mirror and saw Lois glance at her. Looking back down at her lips, they had stopped moving. Raising an eyebrow, she decided to say something to Clark, too. She whispered so quietly that it sounded more like she was breathing.

"I know Lois was talking about me, Clark." Chloe smiled when she saw his head twitch. "I think I've always been a little more observant than my cousin gave me credit for. I don't blame her, really; when you grow up teaching somebody all the things you know you probably don't think about her getting good at them when you aren't looking. It'd be like me watching you hack a database, except I never taught you how to do it."

Chloe glanced up at the rearview mirror for a second, noticing Lois was still looking at the road before she continued speaking. "You don't have to worry about me. I know you will anyway, but something I've learned recently is that worrying too much can make you age. I found my first gray hairs in the last couple months, not to mention a boatload of new wrinkles. I doubt you've noticed, let alone Pete, Jimmy or any other guy I know, but I'm fairly certain Lois, Lucy and Lana can see where I've covered it up.

"If she continues worrying about me as much as I know she does, she's going to go gray and wrinkled before her time, too. One of us is enough in that area, and she has better things to think about, like that son of yours. Please, tell her I'm fine. I know me showing up a little drunk must have thrown her, but it was just one time. I had another interviewer turn me down and I just felt worthless. Alcohol isn't a cure, but it made me feel a little better about my day. I'm sorry if I worried her, and you can tell her I said that."

Chloe ran a hand through her hair, ruffling it a little bit into an organized mess as she sat back and stopped whispering. What had once been a good buzz was now quickly fading. She looked out the window, watching houses and tress pass by until they pulled into the driveway of the intended house. She could barely even feel the effects of the alcohol as she stepped out of the car, and it hadn't been that long of a drive. Apparently she didn't even need to eat now. Stupid tolerance.

She followed them up to the front door and inside, dropping her purse on a little table not far from the front door. "So, what can I help with?"

Clark answered her. "Well, we decided to grill cheeseburgers, so I guess you can make the salad and keep Lois away from what we're eating."

"Hey, I'm learning how to cook, Smallville. Those lessons at the community college I took while I was pregnant will pay off, especially when I get into them again and really apply myself." Lois looked over at her. "I kept getting distracted by Jacob kicking or a story. Got some great thinking done during that class, but none of it really helped my cooking."

"Yeah, I've noticed that. I'm sure you'll conquer it, though. Nothing much in this world of ours whips Lois Lane Kent for long and gets away with it."

Lois smiled and walked off, leaving Chloe and Clark in the room. He had done a super speed change of clothes, apparently, because he was in jeans and a t-shirt instead of the suit he'd been wearing on the drive home. They went about their tasks silently, Chloe making a bland but edible salad as Clark made the hamburger patties.

"She won't believe me when I tell her you're fine, Chloe."

Turning away from the bowl of salad, Chloe watched Clark work a minute before speaking. "What do you mean?"

"She won't believe me if I tell her you're ok. I don't believe it myself. Life has been rough on you for a few months now and we're both worried about you. It's not the drinking that has us worried as much as the way you sound, though you seem to be imbibing more and more." He sighed and turned from the meat he'd been mixing, walking over to the sink and washing off his hands. He grabbed a towel and dried them off, tossing it back in place before he spoke again.

"You barely talk about your life anymore, and when you do, you sound... defeated. You don't sound like you have any fire left in you, no will to fight. When that was going on a month after what happened in April, I thought it was a natural reaction. But now its been three months, and if anything you sound even worse than you did then. And you were wrong in the car, saying that I probably hadn't noticed anything. You look tired, and you look like you're trying to hide from life."

Chloe gulped. He'd read her perfectly, describing how she sounded as the exact way she felt every day when she woke up. She turned back to her salad and started mixing it up again. "Can't really blame a girl for wanting to hide for a little while, Clark. Everything I had, the entirety of the future I had planned disappeared. In the span of twelve days I lost my dream job, my potential husband and buried my father."

"I know, and I'm not telling you how to handle your life. If anything like that happened to me I don't know what I would do. I just... I miss the Chloe I've always known."

"The Chloe you've always known is gone, Clark. Life crushed her and discarded the bloody husk that was left. People have to adapt or the world passes them by. I adapted, and now I am what I am. I'm sorry you don't like this me as much as you liked old me, but I guess we'll both just have to live with that." She heard a knock at the door and looked over at him as she wiped her hands off on her shorts. "You should put the first batch of burgers on the grill. I'll get that."

Walking away, Chloe wiped a tear out of the corner of her eye and smiled as she opened the door to find Lucy and Jimmy standing there. She pulled Lucy into a hug. "How are you feeling, Luce?"

"Pretty good, actually. No morning sickness, believe it or not. Seems I'm one of the lucky ones, so far at least."

"Has Lois heard this yet?"

"Not unless Jimmy told her."

Chloe looked at Jimmy, who held up his hands. "I don't know what to say or not say, so when people ask me questions I just refer them to the one of us that's actually pregnant."

"Well, don't tell her unless I'm in the room. That's a reaction I don't want to miss, miserable as she was for about six weeks."

After a few more smiles they walked past her. She was going to close the door as she saw another car pulling up in front of the house. Pete and Lana got out of the car, no kids in sight and walked up to the house. She gave each a quick hug.

"Where are PJ and Richie?"

"They're staying with my mom back in Topeka for the night. We thought we'd try an adults only night since Clark said they were leaving Jacob with Martha for the night."

"All of us together and no little voices present. This might seem odd for a little while."

"I think we'll live," Lana said, smiling. "How are you doing, Chloe?"

The first one of the night. Ah well, at least it was getting out of the way early, and since Pete was with her, maybe he wouldn't corner her and ask at some point. "I'm alright. I like to think I'm holding up nicely, and since I'm alive, something seems to be going right. Come on, let's go join everybody else."

Chloe led them back through the house and onto the back porch, where everybody was standing around and talking. Lois had joined Clark, Lucy and Jimmy while she'd been at the front door, having changed her clothes. Chloe saw her smile as the joined all the others.

"Hey guys! No kids tonight?" Hadn't she just asked that? This is why she should always forgo the obvious questions.

"Nope," Pete said. "Mom's watching 'em for us and we're flying solo for the first time in... what? A month?"

"Something like that. I love my boys, but I think a night away from them will keep that love alive and well."

"Is it really that bad? What do you guys think Jimmy and I should expect?"

Chloe groaned inwardly, listening to all the couples start up on the topic of children. She'd hoped they'd just leave it at where are the kids talk. Before they got too deep in it, Chloe interrupted. "I'm getting drinks. Who wants one?"

Everybody looked at her for a second. Clark spoke first. "Uh, I guess I'll take a beer unless somebody wants to open some wine."

After three more beer orders and nobody wanting wine, Chloe headed inside and grabbed three beers out of the fridge. Smiling at the fact that Lois had gotten the good stuff, she popped the top off of all of them and carried them outside. She handed the other three off and took a sip of her own as the conversation about kids went on. She did her best not to look bored out of her mind, but she didn't think it was working. To keep herself occupied she went over to the grill and flipped the burgers for Clark a few times.

Apparently this is what her life was going to be now. She'd go have dinner with all her friends, and on the nights she wasn't 'volunteering' to watch the kids just so she had somebody to talk to, she was going to be stuck in her own head. Being stuck in her own head was depressing; she'd been there for most of the past three months and so far it wasn't working out all that well.

"How are the burgers looking, Chloe?"

Looking up, Chloe found herself to be the object of attention for six other people. She looked down at the burgers, but had no idea if they qualified as done or not. "Uh... Clark?"

He smiled and walked over, looking at them for a second. "Another couple flips, guys, then we'll put on cheese for those who want it. I take it that's everybody?"

After unanimous love of cheese on meat was confirmed, Chloe headed inside to grab the slices. She pounded the rest of her beer and tossed the empty bottle before pulling another out of the fridge. Setting the cheese slices down, she got the top off of her beer and drank a little of it before grabbing the slices again and heading outside.

People were engrossed in child based conversation again, so Chloe walked over to the grill and flipped the burgers, putting the cheese on the newly exposed side. She pulled the top down on the grill so that the cheese would melt more quickly, remembering that much from watching others do this, and took another drink of her beer. She was starting to feel the alcohol again, but since she'd be eating soon, she doubted it would last long. Blinking a couple times, she opened the top again and pulled the burgers off the grill on put them on a plate Clark had brought out earlier.

She walked over to the others, who seemed to take no notice of her until she stood right in the middle of them and hit the metal tongs against her beer glass. "Food's ready, guys."

Everybody walked inside, Chloe trailing as everybody else was volunteering to do other things. Soon it seemed everybody was seated in one chair or another around the living room, eating dinner. Chloe took a couple pieces of lettuce out of her salad, along with a tomato slice, and put them on her burger, taking a big bite. Washing it down with another sip of beer, she smiled; it felt good to have some real, substantial food in her stomach.

It was a comfortable silence for a couple minutes while everybody got into their food, but then Lana broke it. "So, Lois and Clark, how much has Jacob grown since we last saw him?"

Chloe rolled her eyes and took another bite of burger. Unbelievable. Why was it impossible for all her friends to talk about something that was not focused on people under the age of five? Was it really so difficult? She understood that priorities changed, and hell, she'd talked about adapting earlier, but did it have to be every damn conversation? What were the single people supposed to talk about? Oh, yeah, there was only one single person in this pit of despair. Fan-damn-tastic.

Rubbing at her forehead, Chloe swallowed the last bite of her burger, stood up and walked back to the kitchen, grabbing the last cooked burger and plopping it on a bun. She took a big bite, not bothering to put any toppings on it, and walked into the living room. "Hey, I'm going to make more burgers. How long should I cook 'em?"

"Eighteen to twenty, flip 'em every minute at the start and every two or three after that."

Chloe gave Pete a pat on the shoulder and went back into the kitchen, taking a bite of her burger before pulling the uncooked batch out of the fridge. She grabbed her plate and some tongs before heading outside, squinting as the sun sat low on the horizon and hit her square in the eyes. Grumbling, she made her way over to the grill and got it turned so that she wasn't facing west. Getting the burgers on, she pulled a chair over and sat down.

One thing she liked about where Lois and Clark lived was that it was quiet. She didn't get much quiet anymore. Her building was a noise factory disguised as apartments, and most of her time out of the apartment was spent with cab drivers that liked to talk or in an office, talking to somebody in HR that was busy telling her no and the reasons for that no. She rubbed her eyes with her palms for a second before grabbing her beer and drinking some of it.

Closing her eyes, Chloe felt completely alone for a moment. Well, that was a lie; these days Chloe always felt alone. It was more of a degree of alone.

Standing up, Chloe flipped the burgers then sat down again, taking another drink of beer. Out here, with the quiet surrounding her and everybody inside, enjoying their children centered lives, she was totally alone. They had no interest in her, outside of feeling sorry for her.

She ran out of beer halfway through the cooking, but didn't want to bother rectifying the situation. That would only distract everybody else from being engrossed in their conversation, and as much as she wished she were part of it, she didn't want to screw it up for them. Truth be told, she was happy for them; they all had close friends to share their lives and family with.

She kind of remembered what that was like. Chloe flipped the burgers again and stayed standing, looking back to the horizon, or what she could see of it between houses. Jesus, three and a half months ago she'd been as happy as she'd ever been. She would come to one of these get together things and enjoy it, getting engrossed in the whatever the topic was. Sometimes it was her wedding, other times babies, though Lucy hadn't been pregnant then.

For some reason, listening to people talk about babies was a lot more interesting when it seemed babies were in one's near future. She almost missed the constant badgering from Lois about when she was going to have one.

Looking back towards the house, she wondered if anybody even really noticed she was gone. It seemed unlikely, aside from having announced she was going outside. Since nobody seemed to notice her when she was in the room anymore, at least not without her announcing her presence or asking if they wanted a drink, her not being in the room seemed a doubtful cause for anybody to notice her.

This whole not being noticed thing would have been extremely handy when she'd been a reporter and had things to investigate. Now it just kind of went to waste.

Checking her watch, Chloe found that it had been seventeen minutes since she'd started cooking. Sighing, she walked to the house and went inside, heading for the fridge to grab some cheese slices and another beer. There was only one beer left. She sighed again and left it there for somebody else to have. She'd probably had enough alcohol for the day, anyway, though this was going to seriously ruin her blissful haze plans.

She looked over at everybody for a second. Not even a glance came her way. They'd moved on to some couple thing she couldn't decipher from her brief stint of listening. Frowning, Chloe grabbed another clean plate to put the meat on and walked outside, putting the cheese on the burgers and closing the grill. Scratching her chin, she crossed her arms over her chest and stood there, unable to stop thinking about her life.

Maybe that was her affliction. Much like the others had babies, all she seemed to think about anymore was how pathetic her life was. In her defense, she figured, was the fact that every person she knew felt the need to remind her that she had shit left in the world. Makes not thinking about it a whole hell of a lot more difficult. She didn't blame them, though. She would have done the same thing if all of it had happened to somebody else. And hey, what the hell did she have to talk about anyway? 'My life sucks. What are your views on it?'

Chloe opened the grill again and pulled the burgers off, closing the top again once she had them all and walked back inside. "Burgers are ready, guys, for anybody that wants one."

Everybody looked up at her, as if seeing her for the first time all night. Clark looked around at everybody a second before turning back to her. "I think we're good, Chloe, but thanks for making them."

"No problem," she said as she placed one of the smaller ones on a bun and doused it with ketchup. She grabbed a piece of lettuce from the big salad bowl and walked into the living room, sitting down in the chair she'd previously occupied. Taking a bite of her burger, she listened to the conversation they'd moved on to. Cribs. How had that not come up earlier? It never fucking ended.

Chloe looked up from her burger and found Lois looking at her. She shot her a small, closed mouth smile, and got the same in return before Lois jumped back into the conversation. Well, at least somebody knew she was there. A moral victory of the being noticed sort, if nothing else.

The rest of the night passed more slowly than Chloe could have imagined. It was like time had been stretched out to be extra long, just so she could have a little more time being somebody nobody noticed. At the beginning of the night, if somebody had told her that she'd only have to talk about how much her life sucked once, she'd have thought they were crazy and thought such a party would be great. She'd have been very, very wrong.

Finally Chloe got up, not able to take it anymore. "Guys, this was... well, it was what it was. I'm going to call a cab and head home."

"Are you sure, Chloe? I'm more than happy to give you a ride."

"Thanks, Clark, but I'll be fine. Bye, everybody."

Chloe walked outside, dialing the cab company whose number she kept handy for just such occasions. A few minutes later she was sitting on the curb, waiting patiently when a motion in the corner of her eye alerted her to somebody else sitting down.

"How ya doing, Chlo?"

"I'm fine, Lois."

"You were buzzed at five thirty in the afternoon and didn't say five words tonight, at least not five that weren't involved with getting drinks or food."

"I didn't have anything to say."

Lois scoffed. "I seriously doubt that."

"I got turned down for another job this afternoon, so the drinks were just a consolation prize." Chloe paused for a second, laughing to herself. "And of course, tomorrow was supposed to be my wedding. Can't believe I'd almost forgotten that tidbit."

"Chloe..."

"As far as tonight... I don't even know why I came. I knew what was going to happen because I've been to these things for two years now, ever since we made it a regular occurrence, but I came anyway."

"What are you talking about?"

Chloe looked over at Lois and smiled sadly. "This is a couples night, Lois. The fact that the couples are made of our friends and family is nice, but that doesn't change what it is. Before, when I was actually part of a couple, I could enjoy it without realizing what it was, but to be single and go to it... perspective is everything."

Lois looked like she wanted to frown, but looked away instead. After a minute of silence, she finally spoke. "You could always date, Chloe. That might help."

Chloe let her head drop and chuckled. "Lois, I've loved three men in my life. The first was Clark, and yeah, he was a high school and slightly beyond crush, but I was never what he wanted. It happens, ya know? Then there was Jimmy. I loved him, he loved me. I felt I had to hold a little back in that relationship, and that part was my fault, but I saw him looking at Kara as soon as he met her. Hell, this was before I even pulled away a bit, or near the same time, and still felt like I was in it as much as I could be, and it wasn't enough.

"And then there was Mark. A man I loved like no other, really. I had never opened myself up to a guy like I did Mark because I saw what you had with Clark, what everybody around me seemed to have, and I wondered why I didn't have it. I figured that part had to be it, because I'm not good at it and my relationships didn't last. So I really opened up, and I was with him for two and a half years. It was amazing. And then that night came. He never loved me. He wanted to, but it wouldn't happen.

"I've now become unlovable to guys. How did I need that? I already had enough problems with men because I was never the hottest one in a room, or the most interesting or even the go get 'em type that could be aggressive. I never stood out because I was in the midst of excellence, always with my friends and family.

"I thought I had gotten lucky, though, because I had found somebody I thought loved me for me. In reality, I had found somebody that thought I was good for him but never loved me, and couldn't no matter how often he said he did. Then he found somebody else and didn't tell me for eight months. Love at first sight, of all things!"

Chloe rested her face in her hands for a moment, then lifted her head and wiped away a tear. "I appreciate the offer to get me out there, Lo, but I think I'm done with trying to find somebody that loves me. I'm tired of being the wrong girl. It hurts too much. One way or another I end up alone so I'm just cutting out the painful part to keep what little heart I have left."

"Will you at least keep coming to these get together's whenever Pete and Lana drive into Metropolis? They love seeing you. I can go get them right now and have them tell you."

"Maybe I will again someday, but now... now I'm just tired of being the person everybody feels sorry for, the person everybody wishes didn't feel so awkward. The only thing people ask me anymore is if I'm alright, Lois. It's not their fault, because I would do the same thing in the situation. To endure more nights like this, though... I don't know if I would survive another conversation centered on children with my sanity intact. I can't do it, Lois. I don't have it in me because I'm not that person anymore."

Chloe spotted the cab driving down the street and stood up, holding out a hand to wave the driver over. She looked back at Lois, who was standing up and dusting herself off. "We want you here, Chloe. Never doubt that."

"I don't, and I won't, but like I said, this is a couples night, and I have no couple to be a part of." She leaned over and hugged Lois quickly before pulling away. "I love you, Lo."

"I love you too, Chloe."

As soon as it stopped, Chloe jumped in and told the driver where to go. Half an hour later she was walking into her building, heading up the stairs and into her hole. She let her purse drop to the floor and pulled off her shirt and shorts before sitting down on the bed. She felt a little cool air hit her back from the window mounted air conditioning unit before bringing her legs up onto the bed and stretching out.

Lying on her back, Chloe stared at the ceiling. She really wanted to be tired, but it wasn't happening. She felt like she should be tired, but just wasn't. In her lonely apartment, laying on her bed and staring at the ceiling after drinking like a fish for most of the afternoon, she couldn't fall asleep to save her life. What a life she led.


	3. Section 1: Bleak Chapter 2

---- Chapter 2: Lost In The Shuffle

Opening her eyes, Chloe was greeted with the view of her wall. What the hell was ringing? Rolling onto her back, she took a second before sitting up. Was that her phone? Rubbing at an eye, she unwrapped herself from something and rolled towards the edge of her bed, standing up and walking the few feet to her purse, dropped on the floor amongst some clothes after a late night out. She gabbed her purse and pulled her phone out, flipping it open.

"Hello?"

"Miss Sullivan? This is Blake Stanton, from Stanton Tech."

Chloe held the phone away from her ear for a second and slapped herself across the face to wake up a bit, blinking as she put the phone back to her ear. "Mr. Stanton, how are you?"

"I'm fine, thank you. Look, I've been thinking about your interview on Friday and while I still can't offer you the spot you interviewed for, I want to offer you a job. It's not a good job, or a job that pays well, but it's work and you'll have the opportunity to move up in the company over time."

Chloe really felt like telling him yes, but she figured she should hear what the job was first. "I'm flattered you've been thinking about me. What's the job?"

"My assistant."

Chloe had heard worse news. It might be a fresh new start, if nothing else, and it would certainly keep her from ending up waiting tables or working retail. She preferred not to do that unless she really had to. After thinking about it for a second, she spoke. "I'll take it."

"Good, I'm glad. You can start this week or next, whenever you feel like you're ready to go and..."

"I'll start tomorrow. The sooner the better."

"Great, alright. We'll get everything squared away when you come in tomorrow morning, then. Welcome to the team, Miss Sullivan."

"Please, call me Chloe."

She heard him chuckle on the other end of the line. "Alright, Chloe, but only if you call me Blake. People calling me Mr. Stanton makes me feel stuffy and old. I'm trying to avoid that until I'm stuffy and old."

"Blake it is. Thank you, very much, and I'll see you tomorrow."

Chloe closed her phone and smiled, closing her eyes and bouncing around in a little dance of joy. Finally, something was going right. It might not be the best job, but it was a job and gave her opportunity for advancement, so it was something.

Yawning, she turned around and looked at her bed, freezing. Why was there a guy in her bed? When had he even gotten there? Rubbing at her eyes a second, he was still there. She didn't even feel anything residual from the night before. Getting back into bed, she laid down and sighed. She must have had more to drink than she thought. As Chloe fell asleep again she wondered if it had at least been decent sex.

Chloe grabbed a writing pad and pen before answering the buzzing phone on her ear. "Mr. Stanton's office."

"This is Andrew Morgan. Is Mr. Stanton in?"

"I'm sorry sir, but he's out of town right now. Is there a message I can get to him for you?"

"Just let him know I called, please. He has my number."

Chloe heard a click on the other end and pushed the hang up button on her earpiece before writing down the man's name and getting back to the paperwork she was sorting through. Two weeks into her job and so far it was pretty much the same work she'd done in her early days at the Planet. Phone answering, sorting, take this and that here and there. At least here she didn't have to answer questions about pet obituaries.

As she finished one stack of papers, she grabbed another out of a box she had next to her desk chair on the floor. Getting financial statements sorted was tedious but time consuming. The phone calls weren't as frequent as she thought they might be, but she guessed people still weren't fully aware that this place existed.

Taking a second before she started on the stack, Chloe sat back in her chair. Blake was a good boss, really, and treated her as an equal instead of a subordinate. He even used her opinions on public relations. Apparently since she'd been in the journalism community, she knew what sounded good and to whom. Most of what she said was common sense, but he and the PR department seemed to like it, so she was happy to help.

The phone started buzzing again and Chloe grabbed her notepad and pen before pushing the answer button. "Mr. Stanton's office."

"Chloe, it's Blake."

"Hey, Blake. How's your trip going?"

"Very good. I found an investor and that's always a plus. Have there been any calls since lunch?"

"Yes, just a moment ago, actually. A man named Andrew Morgan called, and said that you would know his number."

"Yeah, I do. I should call him, so I'll talk to you later, Chloe."

Chloe hung up and went back to her paperwork, sorting and filing until the box was empty. She checked her watch, finding it to be four in the afternoon. Smiling, she looked around at the office. It was a nice place, if not sparsely decorated. They kept it simple, and that was fine by her.

Today was going to be a good day, though. The first paycheck. She smiled to herself as she thought about actually getting to put money into the bank instead of her constant withdrawals. It would take time to replenish her savings and be able to live how she wanted again, but this was the first step on that road, and more importantly, the first step to getting the hell out of her crappy apartment. She felt like that place was just the cherry on top of the crap sundae that was her life.

But now there was hope. She had income, and she felt like the only way things could go was up. Lex had done his best to take her hope away, causing her to lose her job and starting that spiral that had nearly ruined her life. But she'd won. His negative influence on her life was being brushed away like the ash of an old fire so that a new flame could be made.

Checking her watch again, she bit her lip and waited impatiently. Blake had told her that the paychecks were hand delivered to desks every other week, so she'd been looking forward to this day for the whole week, not to mention the previous.

Finally, a few minutes later she saw a guy walking around and handing out envelopes. She'd had so little to be excited about recently that she was almost bouncing in her chair as the guy walked towards her desk. Then he walked by without stopping. Chloe frowned for a second, scratching at the back of her left hand before standing up and following the guy. After he handed an envelope to somebody she tapped him on the shoulder and he turned to face her.

"Hi, yeah, I'm Chloe Sullivan. You didn't happen to pass me up, did you?"

"Let me check," he said as he looked at a list of names. "No, there's no Chloe Sullivan on here. Are you a new employee?"

"I started ten days ago, so yeah."

"Did you get all your paperwork done? Maybe sign up for direct deposit?"

"Yes to the first question, no to the second. Call me old fashioned, but I actually like to see my check instead of just randomly having money put into my account."

He shrugged at her. "Don't know what to tell you. I guess you can take it up with the accounting department, or maybe human resources. I just hand the checks out, got nothing to do with them being signed or whatever."

Chloe gave him a quick smile before turning away and frowning. It figured. Her happiness just had to be ruined by some stupid mix up. Making her way back to her desk, she grabbed the earpiece to the phone, her notepad and a pen before heading towards to other end of the office. She knocked on the accounting offices door and quickly was told to come in.

A middle aged woman sat behind a desk covered in papers. Chloe gave her a quick smile before speaking. "Hi, my name is Chloe Sullivan. I started here ten days ago, but I didn't get my check today. The guy said to try here first, so this is me trying."

"Alright, what day did you start working here?"

"July 23rd. A week ago this past Tuesday."

The lady started punching things up on her computer and Chloe waited patiently. The phone wasn't ringing, fortunately, so this could work itself out as quickly as possible instead of her having to step out and take a call.

"I do not see your name on the payroll, Miss Sullivan. What's your job?"

"I'm Mr. Stanton's assistant."

"And you got all your paperwork filled out and filed?"

"That was most of my first day."

"Well, there's not much I can do. You need to go to HR and see what happened to your paperwork, because I haven't received anything to put you on the payroll."

Chloe fought the urge to roll her eyes and left the office, heading back towards her desk. She turned and walked into the little side part of the office devoted to HR. She walked up to their main little desk thing and spoke to the guy sitting behind it. "Who do I see about not getting a paycheck?"

"You want accounting, down further that way," he said as he pointed towards where she'd been.

"I just came from there, actually, and the lady said that I need to come here since my paperwork or whatever didn't get sent to her so that I was put on the payroll."

"Oh, alright. You want Trip back in the corner. He's seeing somebody at the moment, so you can have a seat if you want, or I can have him buzz your desk."

"I'll wait," Chloe said as she took a seat in a chair against the wall. Sitting back, she crossed her legs and let her hands rest in her lap. A few minutes later she saw somebody come walking out and got waved in by the guy at the desk. She walked back to the office and knocked on the opened door. "Trip?"

"Yeah, that's me. What can I help you with?"

Chloe took a few steps inside the office. "I didn't get my check today, and the lady in accounting said she never got any paperwork to put me on payroll, so I was sent here and pointed your way."

"Alright. When were you hired.?"

"July 23d."

"And you filled out all the forms?"

"As far as I know."

"Your job?"

"I'm Mr. Stanton's assistant."

The man started typing something, and a few minutes later started going through some papers in a filing cabinet next to his desk before sitting back down and shaking his head at her. "I cannot find any information on you anywhere. You seem to have slipped through the cracks of the system, unfortunately."

Chloe sighed. Perfect. Now she couldn't even catch a break when she caught a break and got a job. "Is there anything we can do about it?"

"This afternoon? No, sorry. Basically what needs to happen is that you have to redo all your paperwork, because it's gotten lost somewhere. It's not in the system and it's not in my files. We could do that now, but Blake isn't here to sign off on it."

Chloe rubbed at her forehead for a second, eyes closed as she fought the urge to yell a few obscenities. "So, when Blake gets back on Tuesday we can do all this and I can get paid?"

"Well, maybe. We can do all the papers, but in all likelihood you won't be able to get paid until the end of the week. Probably. It might be a week from next Friday, but you can talk to accounting about that."

"Two weeks? I may not get paid for another two weeks?"

"Like I said, you can talk to accounting about that. There's not really anything I can do right now."

"At least tell me that this has happened before and I'm not just lucky like that."

He smiled sheepishly. "Sorry."

Chloe exhaled loudly. "Can I at least get the paperwork to fill out over the weekend so I'm not wasting a day letting work pile up while I'm doing it?"

A little while later Chloe walked out of the office, still feeling like steam should be pouring out of her ears. At least she had the paperwork, but the possibility of not getting paid for two weeks... why? Why did this shit happen to her? Why did it ONLY happen to her? Getting back to her desk, she tossed her headset down on it and set the automated message to play until Monday. Grabbing her purse, she walked out of the office and caught a cab, heading home until Lois and Clark came by to pick her up for dinner.

Once in her apartment, Chloe changed into some much more comfortable clothes and flopped down on her bed. Rubbing a hand over her face, she got up again and walked over to her mini fridge, pulling out a bottle of water before heading back to sit on the edge of her bed.

She'd been trying to cut down on her alcohol intake since she'd gotten the new job. It had seemed like hope, and while she'd never thought of drinking as hopeful, it had seemed to make her forget hopelessness for a while. Waking up with a hangover three mornings a week was not pleasant, though.

Checking her watch again, she figured that Lois and Clark would be there any minute. Grabbing her purse once more, she slipped on some sandals and headed downstairs, walking out of her building and standing on the sidewalk. It was an oddly cool day for August, but felt pretty good. The sun was still high enough that she caught a little bit of it on the back of her neck. Running a hand back through her hair, she ruffled it a little bit so that it shielded her neck until the sun disappeared behind the buildings.

After waiting another ten minutes outside, Chloe had moved back to sit on the steps leading into her building. Scowling, she pulled her phone out to see if she'd gotten any calls, finding that she hadn't. She sighed, deciding to wait for a while longer. It wasn't like Lois was the most punctual person in the world. Running late was almost force of habit for her, at least in the morning. Waking up was not her cousin's strong suit, or so she claimed.

Chloe had always thought that Lois could have been a morning person if she hadn't chosen to go into a profession that kept her investigating things late at night. Once Clark had gotten back from his training and been teamed up with Lois, she'd taken to doing more during the day. Having a lookout for her activities, even if it was Clark, had emboldened her a little. Once Clark had told her about his powers and non-spectacled alias, she'd been very emboldened, especially soon after when they were together.

Not that Lois had really needed emboldening. It was just piling on to where the was already excess, really.

Chloe checked her watch again and rested her arms on her knees as she watched cars drive by. When Lois had seen her new building, she'd about flipped. If not for Clark holding her back, she was sure that Lois would have single handedly moved her into their basement. She'd claimed that Chloe would have been just as close to everything without having all the less than stellar looking people around, plus it was free.

As flattering as it had been to have somebody care enough to try and forcibly move her into her home, Chloe had wanted to maintain some semblance of autonomy in her life. If she'd have been in their basement, she never would have stopped hearing from Lois about how she should try dating again, or how she should keep going after journalism jobs, no matter what the outcome would obviously be. What if she was pleasantly surprised?

Truth was, she'd thought about doing that. But what was out there for her? She goes to a smaller paper, sure, but she'd still have the black mark on her record. What would they let her do? Reporting on the happenings of city hall in some random city really didn't sound like the greatest thing. She'd worked for the Daily Planet, one of the preeminent papers in the world! Taking a step down like that would have been too much.

At least she still had her pride. Not that it got her anywhere, really. All it did was keep her from leaving Metropolis to work at what she did best for a small paper that would never dare take on Lex Luthor, at least not in print. Hire her? Sure, but she wouldn't have any effect on the world, and that was where the pride kicked in. She'd changed things in Metropolis that had repercussions through the country and even internationally; anything less wouldn't work.

Chloe rested her face in her hands, pulling it up a little bit until her chin was resting on her palm. Her thoughts were going in circles. She had to stop thinking about what she didn't have anymore and focus on the future. She had a job again, one that didn't seem to want to pay her, but a job nonetheless. Opportunity for advancement in a young tech compant that was getting financiers behind it, well, that had potential written all over it.

Pulling her phone out of her purse, Chloe scrolled to Lois's cell and hit the dialing button. She put the phone to her ear and listened to it ring for a minute before her voicemail picked up.

"You've reached the voicemail of Lois Lane Kent. Leave me a message and I'll call you back ASAP, or at least when I have a chance."

When it beeped, Chloe spoke. "Hey Lo, it's Chloe. Just wondering where you are. I'm sure you've just got your hands full with Jacob and Clark is out, or something like that. I'm looking forward to dinner tonight, and to seeing you guys. Bye."

Two hours later, Chloe was sitting in her apartment, scrolling to Lois's number again. She growled as the stupid message played and waited for the beep. "So, Lois, how's it going? If you feel like you forgot something tonight, don't worry about it. Fits in perfect with my day, where my new job seems to think I don't exist. Have a nice night, or day if you get this when it's sunny tomorrow."

Chloe closed her phone and grabbed her purse again, heading out of her apartment and downstairs. It was one thing to slip between the cracks in a company, but to be forgotten by her cousin, who was basically her sister, without so much as a call? Walking along the sidewalk, Chloe kept an eye on every dark crevice between buildings. She finally got to the diner and pulled on the door, only to find it locked. Looking inside, all the lights were off. She just about screamed.

Waving down a cab, Chloe got in and had the driver take her to the nearest restaurant. Somehow that ended up being a Chili's fifteen minutes away, but she wasn't complaining because she was starved. Walking inside, Chloe went straight to the bar and sat down. Motioning to the bartender, he walked over to her.

"What can I get you?"

"Tall Shiner Blonde. Can I also get a thing of chips and salsa and a cheeseburger with lettuce, tomato and ketchup?"

"Sure thing. I'll go put the order in and get your beer right after."

He walked off and Chloe let her head rest on the bar, closing her eyes as her stomach grumbled at her audibly. She lifted her head back up a moment later when the bartender put her beer and the chips in front of her. Chloe smiled at him a second before taking a big drink and grabbing a couple chips, crunching them loudly. She dipped the next few in salsa, enjoy the spice, but she went through the chips quickly. She turned down another basket of them so that she would have room for her burger and fries.

When those got there, Chloe ordered another beer and dug in, eating the burger like it was going out of style. She let the fries linger a bit before finishing them off and ordering a slice of some chocolate cake and kahlua combo that really topped things off well. She finished off her third beer after she finished her cake and paid, walking out of the restaurant. Pulling her phone out of her purse, she found that she had no messages and called the cab company.

An hour later she was home, slipping off her sandals and clothes before pulling on a nightshirt and falling into bed.

Chloe woke up with a start as somebody was pounding on her door. Blinking a few times, she got out of bed and pulled on the pants she'd discarded last night before pulling the door open, finding Lois standing there.

"What the hell are you doing here at... what time is it?"

"8:30. I am SO sorry that we forgot about dinner last night, it's just everything piled up and we didn't even eat until about 9:00, and by that point I had just been so busy... God, that's no excuse. I shouldn't forget about you, no matter what. When I got your message after waking up this morning I felt like the world's biggest ass."

Chloe waved her off, going back and sitting down on the edge of her bed as she rubbed at her eye. She stifled a yawn as she spoke. "Don't worry about it, Lois. I ate at Chili's, came home and passed out. It was a well rounded night of eating and drinking."

"Well at least let me treat you to breakfast. Clark and Jacob stayed home so it'll just be you and me. We can talk about what happened at your job yesterday! I'm very ready to lend a sympathetic ear. Come on, up and at 'em! Get dressed!"

Chloe eyed her cousin a second before getting up and pulling a clean shirt and bra out of her laundry bag, walking over to the bathroom and pulling her dirty clothes off before pulling the clean ones on. She grabbed her toothbrush and some toothpaste, giving her teeth a quick scrub before walking out to the her living room again. She picked a hairbrush up off a pile of junk and ran it through her hair as she talked.

"So, where do you want to go?"

"How about we..." Lois was interrupted by the sound of her phone ringing, and when she pulled it out of her pocket and looked at it her face fell. Chloe raised an eyebrow as Lois looked up at her. "I'm going to take this, but I'll be right back."

When Lois stepped out into the hallway, Chloe sat back down onto bed, groaning as she tossed the hairbrush away. She felt like she could sleep for another two or three hours, and after sleeping for nine, figured that to be a bad idea, no matter how good it sounded. She laid there for a minute, then sat up when she heard Lois walk back in. The brunette looked annoyed and sad all at once.

"I'm so sorry, Chloe. That was a source I've been trying to meet with for near to a month, and if I don't take this opportunity the story may never pan out."

Second to a story. That had never happened before, at least not on a weekend. "It's alright, Lo. I've been there. Maybe we can do lunch later or something."

"Actually, the source is kind of out of town, so I'm going to have to get Clark to fly me there."

"Where are you supposed to meet?"

"Oregon."

Chloe stared at Lois, a little slack-jawed for a second before shaking herself out of it. "Ok, well, that's that then. Good visit."

"Let's meet up tomorrow. We'll come get you early or meet somewhere and make a family day of it. Maybe Lucy and Jimmy could join us, eh? They'd make it a total family day."

For crying out loud, now she was going to be the fifth wheel! Counting Jacob and the embryo she could be the seventh wheel again. Much as she wanted to tell Lois she wanted it to be just them, she plastered on a smile and nodded. "Sounds great, Lo. Good luck with your meeting."

Lois smiled and walked over, leaning over and hugging her. "I love you, Chlo. I'll call you tonight and we'll hammer out details, alright?"

"Perfect."

When Lois left, Chloe sat and stared at the door, sighing. Tomorrow was going to suck. It was going to be couples stuff the whole day, or at least as soon as Lucy and Jimmy got there. With her luck they'd probably already be deep in conversation by the time she got to wherever they decided to go and would spend the whole day getting babbled at by Jacob.

It was family, though. The only thing left she cared about, really. She just wished that she felt like a part of it anymore.

Chloe paid the driver and got out of the cab, thanking him before walking over to where Lois and Clark were standing next to Jacob's stroller under the shade of a tree. She smiled at them when they saw her and got wrapped in a hug when she got close to Lois.

"Again, so sorry about yesterday, Chloe."

"Again, I understand, Lo. I remember what the chase was like, and when your source is making himself scarce, you have to take advantage of the opportunities you can."

She was hugged a little tighter for a second before she was let go. Clark smiled at her. "So, looking forward to the zoo?"

"Yeah, though I'm still not sure how we ended up making this the place we were starting our day at. I've never been big on the zoo, and isn't Jacob a little young to remember any of this?"

"I'm not putting anything out of the realm of possibility with a half kryptonian baby," Lois said quietly as she lifted Jacob up out of his stroller. She took the few steps back over to her and deposited the eight month old into her arms. Chloe smiled down at him as he wriggled a bit and looked back at his mom.

"I know, little guy. I always feel kinda sad when your mommy lets me go, too." Chloe got him settled against her body, bouncing a little and he calmed down a bit but was still looking back towards his mom. Lois handed her a pacifier and she offered it to Jacob, who took it like it was exactly what he was waiting for. "You always seem to know what he needs, Lo."

"When there's enough crying and fussing over time, one tries to learn as quickly as possible. Fortunately, Jacob is as easy a read as his father is."

"I don't know if I should take offense or be happy you know me so well, Lo."

"I'm saying the latter, Smallville... what's up?"

Chloe looked over at Clark, and she recognized the look he had. He looked at them, sighing. "I need to go. I'll catch up with you guys later."

Chloe watched him run off, shaking her head at her friend's departure. It was too bad he had to go, because it really felt like this could be a good day. They spent the next couple minutes in a comfortable quiet, Chloe playing with Jacob and noticing Lois messing with her phone. On a break from bouncing, Chloe spoke to her. "Whose call are you waiting for?"

Lois looked up. "What? Oh, it's nothing."

"It's not nothing. You're staring at that thing like it's about to turn into a big pile of money. If it is, I'm trading you your baby for that phone so I can move out of my hole and into someplace nice, or at least less of a hole."

"Deal, but only because I love my son so much. Normally any random piles of money that come from my phone would stay mine."

"Duly noted."

After a moment of quiet, Lois spoke. "So, what happened at work on Friday?"

Chloe looked at Lois for a second before looking back to Jacob. She rubbed circles on his back as he laid his head against her. She walked over next to Lois, standing there and watching people pass them by. "Really, it just seemed like one of those things that could only happen to me these days. It probably felt like a bigger deal than it was, but when I asked if it had happened to anybody else and was told no, it was just a steam coming out of the ears moment."

"Then I ask again: what happened?"

"Well, the paycheck guy was passing out the checks. I like to actually get my check instead of having it go directly into my bank account, so when he passed me by like I wasn't even there, I went after him. He told me I wasn't on his list. So I went to accounting, and they had no record of me. Finally, I went to HR and was told that all the paperwork I filled out on my first day had disappeared, like it never existed. I couldn't get my check, and filling out the papers wouldn't do me much good because apparently Blake needed to be there to sign them."

"When will you get paid?"

"No idea. The HR guy, Trip, said that it may be the end of next week, or I may just have to wait until everybody else gets paid two weeks from then, so in twelve days."

Jacob started fussing as Chloe finished speaking and Lois reached over and took him from her, getting him settled in her arms and speaking to him quietly. Chloe crossed her arms over her chest, looking up at the blue sky for a second before looking at the trees. There was no wind to speak of so everything was really still. She looked down at the people for a moment, watching some pass them and go into the zoo until her eyes trained on Lucy and Jimmy walking up. She waved at them and the walked over.

"Hey guys. How's your day been so far?"

"Uneventful. Wake up, breakfast, come here and see you guys."

Chloe glanced at Lois, who raised an eyebrow at her sister. "Still no morning sickness?"

"Still no morning sickness."

"You are just..." Lois stopped speaking for a second and Chloe hid a smile by turning away and looking at Lucy and Jimmy. "You're lucky Jacob is around, and we'll leave it at that."

"Say, where's C.K. at?"

"He had some errands to run, but he's going to join us as soon as possible. So, we ready to head in and look at animals?"

Once inside, Chloe grabbed a map and started guiding them around. They made their way through some of the smaller exhibits before heading towards the birds. As they were walking, Lois's phone rang and Chloe took the stroller from her, letting Lois walk off a little ways. They made their way over to a bench to sit while they waited. Chloe smiled when Jimmy wrapped an arm around Lucy and she leaned into him.

"I'm glad you guys are happy."

Lucy smiled at her. "Thanks, Chloe." Lucy stopped there, and Chloe was thankful for once she had dodged a bullet. She always had to say that she was happy for people for some reason, generally before she thought about what she was saying, and it never led to good things. Usually it led to people saying thanks and wishing her the same luck. Stupid luck. Not that she was bitter or anything. She turned and looked into Jacob's stroller for a second, then Lucy spoke.

"I know Lois asks you this, but have you thought about dating again? I don't want to push you into anything. I just want to see you, I don't know, living."

Chloe sighed and turned her head to look at Lucy with one eye and keep the other on Jacob. Keeping him in view would keep her from yelling. "I think I missed the memo that said dating is living."

Lucy frowned. "Yeah, that came out wrong. Dating is not living; not to sound jaded or cynical, but dating is systematically lying less and less until the other person is invested enough to not care if you're half crazy."

"My wife, the romantic."

Lucy elbowed Jimmy in the stomach before continuing to speak. "What I'm trying to say here is that it makes me sad to see you sitting on the sideline, watching everybody else live while you just drift along. I know you've got the new job, and that's great; getting back into professional life is important, too. Will you be happy with just working, though?"

Chloe looked up at Jimmy. "Can you gives us a minute?"

He nodded. "Yeah, not a problem. I'll go get us some funnel cakes."

Chloe watched him walk off a moment before turning back to Lucy. "Sorry to send your husband off, but this would be awkward with him here." Lucy nodded and Chloe spoke again. "I'll give you the condensed version of what I told Lois. I'm always the wrong girl. Every time I invest in a guy, I'm not what he wants. I know that's true for most couples because not every couple that dates gets married, but this isn't about that. I'm the stand in until they can get what they really want, and I'm sick of it.

"In this world of outstanding people we live in I'm not outstanding, I'm just all right. I accept that and I always have. When I found Mark, I felt outstanding. When he asked me to marry him, I was giddy and started thinking that I was outstanding to him, which is what mattered. But he never loved me. I was never outstanding, just something he thought he wanted. He loved some woman named Laura for the last eight months of our relationship and didn't have the balls to end us because he thought I was good for him.

"I don't mind breaking up with a guy. It's part of life, and a part I've been on both sides of. But to put myself totally out there and told that I'm not enough? If I have to go through that again, it will be the end of me."

Chloe frowned and looked away. That had turned into the barely condensed version of what she'd told Lois, but it probably got the point across, and that's what was important. When Lucy spoke again, Chloe wondered if her point hadn't been clear.

"Chlo, everything in life is a crapshoot. You can't give up on it because these things have a way of working themselves out, cliché as it is. There's a guy that flies because he's from another planet, for Christ's sake! Anything is possible so long as you're open to letting it happen."

"Letting it happen is what keeps hurting me, Lucy, so I'm getting pretty tired of that kind of thing. Some people get lifetimes of happiness, others two and a half years of fake happiness. I happen to be in the latter group."

Chloe was going to say more but saw Lois walking back to them and stopped. She could now tell why Lois had always described her as extremely stubborn about things when before she'd always been pleasantly amenable. God, she'd gone the whole morning without feeling sorry for herself and Lucy just had to ruin that by trying to help. Lois got to them and smiled sadly.

"So, I need to go. Another meeting with a source."

Chloe stood up and shoved her hands in her pocket. "That's too bad, Lo. Maybe we can do something next weekend."

"Well actually, I was going to ask if you wanted to watch Jacob. I was going to give you my house key so you could go there and spend time with him."

"I'll do it!" Chloe looked back over her shoulder at Lucy, who seemed to just realize what she'd shouted. "I mean, ya know, if you don't want to, Chloe."

"No, that's alright. The practice is a lot more relevant for you than it ever will be for me, so go ahead."

"Chloe, why don't you go with her and Jimmy?"

Chloe gave a tight smile and pulled Lois into a hug. "I just endured that torture, and I don't need more of it."

Lois pushed her away, but held onto her arms. "What do you mean?"

"Remember that talk we had at the end of the night when Lana and Pete were in town?"

"Yeah, kind of... why?"

"I basically just had it all over again, and Lucy didn't want to let things go nor did I have a cab to escape in. You leaving is my cab. I love you, and I'll talk to you later." Chloe turned around and waved at Lucy. "Love you, Luce."

Lucy waved at her and Chloe walked off, heading towards the exit. Another day, another talk on why she wasn't happy alone. Why could nobody get that this had nothing to do with being alone? It was about hurting, dammit, and she was tired of hurting. If being alone kept her from hurting, then that was the way things had to be.

Not wanting to go home yet, Chloe walked into an adjacent park and took up a spot on a bench, watching people walk by. Why were so many of them holding hands? Worse, why were there so many people with kids? God, now this crap was in her head! Alone was the only way to keep what was left of her heart, and that's what counted. Unfortunately, it hurt what was left of her heart every time a couple walked by. To never have that again...

Shaking her head, Chloe tried to temper her thoughts but was unsuccessful. Either she was the only damn single person in the entire park or she was in the midst of the most ill-timed visit in history.

Sighing, Chloe covered her face with her hands a second before running them back through her hair. Lois asking her why she wouldn't date, Lucy asking her why she wouldn't date... she needed some kind of alarm that would tell her when somebody was going to start in on that crap. Why couldn't anybody else figure out that she didn't get the happily ever after love and just quit bothering her about it?


	4. Section 1: Bleak Chapter 3

---- Chapter 3: Piling On

"Mr. Franklin? Come on, Mr. Franklin, I need to speak to you."

Chloe knocked on the landlord's door again, hoping that he would answer. So far all she'd heard from him were obscenities that were loud enough to be heard through the door. She knocked again and finally heard steps coming towards her. She backed up a bit as the door opened.

"What?"

"Hi. Look, there's a possibility I'm going to be a couple days late on rent and I just wanted to tell you before you started threatening me with an eviction for not paying on time."

He leaned up again the door jamb. "And why shouldn't I just tell you to get out right now?"

Chloe shrugged and smiled as best she could. "Because I had the courtesy to tell you?"

"Thirty dollars every day you don't pay. More than five days late, you're out."

He retreated back into his room and slammed the door shut. Chloe sighed and walked back to her hole. This whole not having been paid thing was not her idea of good times. When she'd landed the job she'd started splurging on things like more cab rides and better food, assuming she'd get to replenish her savings. As such, now she was running short, even for the minuscule amount her apartment cost. At the moment, though, she needed to come up with that minuscule amount or she was going to be out on her ass.

Her options were limited, though. If she couldn't get paid in the next few days she was going to have to resort to asking Lois and Clark to loan her some money, and that was something she wanted to avoid if at all possible. She'd do it if there was no way around it, but that would just lead to questions that she would feel obligated to answer, no matter how uncomfortable they were. She'd always preferred to be the one asking the questions.

Once in her apartment Chloe walked over to the fridge and pulled out a beer. At least Blake would be back tomorrow. Hopefully when she talked to him about what had happened she'd be able to get him to have the accounting lady to get everything in order and cut her a check. It seemed unlikely.

Chloe yawned as she walked through the office, covering her mouth as she got to her desk and dropped her purse down into a drawer. She grabbed her earpiece and put it on before turning off the automated message and checking to see what had been recorder, if anything, over the weekend. There was one message and Chloe wrote down the name and number before logging into the computer system.

She worked for a little while, taking a couple more messages before she saw Blake walking down the hall towards her. He smiled and stopped in front of her desk. "Hey, Chloe. How was your weekend?"

"It was all right." She handed him the piece of paper with the messages on it. "The first one was left on the system over the weekend, the other two in the last twenty minutes or so. When you get a free minute, can we talk?"

"Yeah, sure. I'll buzz you as soon as I've returned these calls."

He walked into his office and closed the door behind him. Chloe sat back down at her desk, getting back to the paperwork she had to do. Immersing herself in the work, she barely noticed time passing, and found that it had been an hour before she knew it. It was the one thing about this job that she could appreciate, the loss of time factor. Not having deadlines was also a plus, though she found herself longing to have a deadline to write something at the most random times.

Just as she was getting back into something her phone buzzed on her ear and the light on the desk indicated it was from the office. She pushed the answering button. "You need something, Blake?"

"Chloe, come on in."

Setting the message in case of any calls, Chloe dropped her earpiece onto the desk and grabbed the papers she'd gotten from Trip on Friday. Walking into the office, she gave Blake a quick smile before sitting down. "What can I help you with?"

"Well, while you were out of town on Friday paychecks went out. I didn't get one. After some investigation, it turns out something happened to my paperwork somewhere along the line and so I basically don't exist inside the company."

"Are you serious? I handed that paperwork to Trip myself!"

"I don't know what happened. Trip gave me the paperwork and I filled it out again, hoping I could get you to sign off on it so I can be paid today."

Blake sat forward, resting his arms on his desk and motioned for the papers. Chloe handed them to him and after he gave them a quick scan, signed a couple places and handed them back to her. "I'll talk to Lisa right now and get everything sorted out so that you'll have a check by lunch. Why don't you go give your papers to Trip and tell him that I want to see him about this before the day is done. If something like this happens when we're this small, how the hell is he going to handle things as we grow?"

Chloe figured that last bit was more to himself than her and let herself out of the office. The only thing she could think was that she was incredibly happy that she wasn't going to have to go to Lois and Clark for money. God, if she'd needed that they probably would have tried to get her to move into their basement, again, and she didn't know if she'd have resisted. It would be easy to move in somewhere where she could live for free, no matter how much more sad it would make her sad life.

Walking into the HR section of the office, Chloe came to the guy at the desk again. "I need to see Trip for Mr. Stanton."

"He's free, so head on back."

Chloe nodded and headed past his desk until she got to Trip's office. She knocked on the door once before walking in. He looked up at her and sat back in her chair. "Sullivan, right?"

"Right." Chloe handed him the papers. "Filled out by me, signed by Blake. He'd like to see you about this situation by the end of the day, too."

He looked up at her. "Why?"

"Something about losing papers and handling growth. Really, you'll have to talk to him about it. By the end of the day, Trip."

Chloe walked out of his office feeling very satisfied. This had all gone much better than she'd thought it would. Blake making sure that she would have a check by lunch was great, and Trip getting a talking to after he'd apparently been the one to screw things up was just icing on the cake.

A couple hours later Chloe was sitting at her desk when the phone buzzed. "Mr. Stanton's office."

"Miss Sullivan, this is Lisa from accounting. Mr. Stanton had Trip and I fast track all your paperwork and I have your paycheck here. You can pick it up anytime."

Chloe smiled and sat back in her chair. "Thank you, Lisa. I'll be by to pick it up in a few minutes."

Chloe pumped her fist, holding in the victorious cry she wanted to let out. All of it was an overreaction, sure, but what few victories she could achieve deserved to be celebrated to the fullest. Giving herself a moment, she closed her eyes and hoped that this was the beginning of good things, at least professionally. She didn't expect her whole life to turn around just because she could actually get paid.

"Slacking off?"

Chloe spun around in her chair and looked at Blake. "Taking a moment to hope that a simple paycheck means more than money in my life."

"Would lunch help?"

"Couldn't hurt."

Chloe took a piece of paper he held out to her. Looking at it, all that was written on it was a phone number. "What's this for?"

"Little Chinese place a few blocks from here. Order whatever you want, we'll eat together in my office."

Chloe looked at the number a moment before looking up at him. "Ok. What do you want?"

"Imperial beef and a couple eggs rolls." He tossed something at her and she caught it. Looking down at it, she found she was holding a credit card. "It's a company card. Charge it on there and come on in when it gets here."

When Chloe looked up Blake had already retreated back into his office. Shrugging, she dialed the place and ordered his food, along with some hot braised pork and egg rolls for herself. Half an hour later the food was there and she paid with the company card, giving the guy a decent tip before turning on the message and dropping the earpiece on the desk. She grabbed the food and walked into Blake's office, setting the food down on his desk. She handed him the company credit card as he started pulling food out of the bags. They were soon seated and eating their respective meals.

"So, Chloe, tell me if I'm overstepping my bounds, but how's life treating you these days?"

Chloe looked over her food at him. "Why do you ask?"

"I remember that you seemed pretty dissatisfied with it when you interviewed, not to mention you said not an hour ago that you were hoping a paycheck meant more than money. That doesn't exactly sound like the statement of somebody with happiness surrounding her."

"There's happiness," Chloe said around a bite of egg roll, "but it just has a hard time penetrating my tough exterior."

"You have a tough exterior?"

"It's possible." Chloe frowned as he laughed. "It's possible!"

His laughter calmed down into a wide smile. "I'm sure it is. I think you're still recovering from the whole Lex Luthor incident and aren't really happy here, knowing where you should be."

"You're not all wrong. I am still recovering from some things in my life, but I'm thankful for this job. If I hadn't gotten this I probably would have ended up in the food service industry, maybe retail. Nothing wrong with either, but they're not my first choice, as you may guess."

"Still recovering from _things_? Were there circumstances not involving Luthor?" He winced. "Sorry, I tend to put my nose into other people's business. You don't have to answer that."

Chloe swallowed her food and was silent a moment before speaking. "No, it's alright, I'm not afraid to share." Chloe bit her lip a second before starting. Maybe she was a little afraid of sharing. "Four days after Lex cost me my job, my fiancé left me for another woman after telling me he never really loved me. Haven't heard from the bastard since, thankfully. Since I had no job at the time and felt like shit, I went to stay with my dad and while I was there, he suffered a heart attack and passed away."

Chloe looked up at him and found him wide eyed, his mouth hanging open a little. She leaned across the desk and pushed his mouth closed with her chopsticks. He smiled sheepishly. "Sorry. Wasn't really expecting to hear all that."

"I wasn't really expecting to live all that in the span of twelve days. It still kind of dominates my thoughts, along with avoiding my cousins and their desires to see me wrapped around a man."

"What?"

Chloe laughed, realizing how that must have sounded. "They think that if I get back into the dating scene I won't feel so bad about my life. They're better than they sound, I promise, but they're both married, one is pregnant and the other has an eight month old."

"I've been there, kind of. It's probably worse for women, but I have a mother that is determined to see me give her grandchildren before she dies. Seeing as how she runs marathons and gets a clean bill of health every time she goes to the doctor, there's plenty of time left for that, I figure."

"Never take that for granted," Chloe said as she pointed her chopsticks at him.

"You're right, I shouldn't. The constant pressure, though... She wonders why I don't go visit her more often, and I tell her it's because I'm busy here but really, I can only take some much pressure to marry and have kids. Since it gets worse every year I don't have any my visits have become a little shorter over the years. I want my company to be successful before I even think about getting married, let alone kids."

"She is not unlike one of my cousins, Lois. Before everything happened in April she had taken to planning my life out for me. Even had my first baby, which apparently was going to be a girl, named for me. After I lost my job, when we were out having a picnic, she told me that since my mom was unavailable she was playing the role."

He laughed for a moment, taking a drink of water. Chloe laughed a bit, too. It was fairly absurd that Lois had taken to naming her children for her.

"I think your cousin may actually have my mom beat."

"I don't doubt it. Lois has a way about her which tends to have her doing things in a big way. It's why she's the top reporter at the Daily Planet."

She smiled when Blake frowned, trying to put together what she said. "Wait, your cousin is Lois Lane? She's the Lois of Lane and Kent?"

"One and the same. I'm the reason those two met, actually."

"I can only imagine this story."

Chloe shrugged. "The short version is I ran afoul of Lionel Luthor, he tried to kill me, Lex actually helped me survive and fake my death, Lois went to Smallville to try and find me and met Clark, working with him to find me."

"You'll have to tell me the long version sometime." He looked at his watch and sighed. "Unfortunately, it can't be now. I have a conference call in ten minutes I need to prep for." Chloe nodded and got up out of her chair. "I enjoyed talking to you, Chloe."

She smiled at him. "I enjoyed it too, Blake. We may just have to try it again sometime."

"I agree. If you want to save your food, you can stick it in my mini fridge, if you want."

"I think I'll take you up on that."

After putting her food away, Chloe walked back out to her desk and sat down. That had been nice. They had similar family situations, if nothing else. Pretty much everybody could bond over one family thing or another, though. It had been fun just talking to somebody with no expectations. If only that were the norm.

Smiling, Chloe walked home from the diner. After work she hadn't been able to get to the bank before it closed so she'd held onto it, deciding that depositing it in person would be a nice symbolic gesture of getting back on her feet. She could write a check for rent when it was in there and at most she'd have to pay thirty bucks extra. Not too bad, considering that she might have needed to pay four days extra after borrowing money, of all things.

After the unsuccessful trip to the bank dinner had been in order, and she'd gone to Marv's for a chicken sandwich and some fries. It wasn't very good, but at least she had good food to look forward to for lunch the next day. Reheated good food. Way better than skipping lunch to save money.

Rubbing at her neck as she walked, Chloe turned a corner and yawned. She let her hand dropped to her side and walked along slowly. Somehow she'd ended up staying at Marv's until he'd closed the place down. She blamed the television; when she didn't get something useful very often, she found that taking advantage of it when it was available to be a good idea. Unfortunately it left a two block walk home in the dark.

She'd never been a nervous person, really, but Lois had gotten the idea of a mugging stuck in her head when she'd moved into the building. Lois had assured her that half the mugging's Superman stopped were within a three block radius of her apartment, which Clark had debunked seconds later. Yet, here she was, keeping an eye on every nook and cranny because of that speech.

When a hand went over Chloe's mouth she almost rolled her eyes at the timing. Of course she was going to get mugged when she was thinking about Lois telling her she was going to get mugged.

She was thrown back into an alley and stumbled, falling over. She rolled over and sat up, looking at her attacker. He was holding a knife that glinted in the moonlight. Jesus, was she in a cheesy television show or something?

"Gimme your purse, lady!"

Chloe sighed and held up a finger at him. She looked up at the sky. "Superman!" She looked down and smiled at the mugger who was looking up apprehensively. She waited a moment, glancing at the sky after a few seconds and finding no help from Clark. "Superman?"

"Looks like you're the one woman in this city Superman isn't going to save, so hand over your fucking purse!"

Chloe scrambled up to her feet and backed away a bit as the man advanced on her. Alright, this was looking worse and worse by the second. Holding her purse close to her body, she continued to back away slowly. "Superman! Come on!"

Chloe jumped aside as the mugger dove at her, knife first. She started running the other way, but being in heels kept her from achieving any pace. She was tackled from behind and couldn't do much except try to crawl away. The man grabbed her purse and jumped off, running down the alley she'd been thrown into.

Getting up, Chloe dusted herself off, feeling lucky that the man hadn't resolved to use the knife. She'd protected the purse out of instinct more than anything else. Nothing worth anything was ever in there anyway.

Except, of course, her paycheck.

Chloe suddenly felt like she could cry. She'd had it, and now it was gone. Stupid symbolic gestures! Why couldn't she have just dropped the damn thing in a night deposit box? No, she had to do something to try and make herself feel better about her life and it cost her the money she wanted to make the gesture with!

Suddenly a gust of wind blew into her face and she closed her eyes for a second until it passed. When they were opened, Clark was standing in front of her. "What happened Chloe? Why were you calling me?"

"I just got mugged. He's long gone, by now. According to my mugger, I appear to be the only woman in Metropolis you aren't going to save from trouble."

Clark sagged a little and walked closer to her, laying a hand lightly on her shoulder. "I'm so sorry, Chloe. I was helping with a fire and rescue just east of the city when you called and I couldn't do things any faster than I did."

"It's not your fault, Clark. This is just the kind of thing that seems to happen to me."

"What did he take? Just your purse?"

"Yeah, but it actually had something useful in it for once: my paycheck."

Clark groaned, and Chloe felt like joining him. "Lois told me everything that happened with that. I'm sorry, Chloe. You don't think there's any chance I could find him?"

"I couldn't see any distinguishing features or clothes, so no."

"Damn," he said. He disappeared for a second and reappeared in his regular clothes, putting his glasses on. He walked up to her and smiled sadly. "I feel like I can't say it enough, Chlo, but I'm sorry. I want you to come stay with us tonight and sleep in a comfortable room instead of your apartment. Do you have your keys?"

"In my purse."

"More difficult, but not a big hindrance." He disappeared again, and a moment later reappeared with her bag of clean clothes and laptop. He handed the latter to her and walked her out to the street, waving down a cab. They both got in and he told the guy where to drive.

"Clark, you don't have to do this."

"Do you know what Lois would do to me when she heard about this if I didn't bring you back with me? My son would have to learn about me from you because I'll be in a little pieces and Lois will be in jail for involuntary manslaughter."

Chloe smiled and looked over at him. "Why involuntary manslaughter? Seems like Lois would realize what she was doing while dicing you."

"She wouldn't know what she had done until the white hot rage cleared from her vision."

Chloe nodded, knowing that to be a distinct possibility. The rest of the cab ride was quiet as she watched the scenery fly by. When they got to the house Clark paid before Chloe could try, not that she had any money on her now. Clark hoisted her clothes bag up over his shoulder and walked her into the house. When they walked into the living room Lois looked back over her shoulder and frowned.

"What happened?"

Clark answered before Chloe could say anything. "Chloe got mugged and I couldn't get there in time to even catch the guy as he ran."

"_What_?" Lois jumped off the couch and walked over to her. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah. Fortunately my mugger wasn't too keen on stabbing, just threatening and thieving. He had ample chance to kill me but didn't."

"What did he take?"

"My purse, which normally wouldn't be a huge deal except it had my paycheck in it."

"Oh God," Lois said as she wrapped Chloe in a hug. "I'm glad Clark brought you here. What did I tell you about that place being a haven for muggers? Nevermind." Lois backed out of the hug and held Chloe at arm's length. "I'm just glad you're ok. Does this at least change your mind about living there? Will you please come stay here where it's safe?"

"Lois, please..."

"Come on, Chloe. I know I'm kinda being harpy here, but if you came here the basement would be all yours. You could save money until you had enough to buy a nice apartment, or even a small house."

Chloe backed away a bit and crossed her arms over her chest. "Lois, listen to the following statement: Thirty one year old living in her cousin's basement because she got mugged while living somewhere crappy and has no money. What comes to mind?"

Lois grinned and shrugged. "A once and future journalist that's down on her luck and needs her family?"

"Close. A once and _former_ journalist no longer able to do what she loves and has had a run of bad luck that makes the worst gamblers look like they're on a hot streak. I'm almost afraid that if I come live here something bad is going to happen to Jacob!"

"Don't be ridiculous, Chlo."

"One, count 'em ONE good thing has happened to me in the last three months, Lois. That was getting a job as an assistant, which in my case is fancy talk for secretary. That's it. That's all I've got, and I can't even find a way to get paid for doing the job! Coming and living here will only mean the bad things that keep happening to me will follow me here, not to mention I'll officially be pathetic. If anything happened to you guys..."

"But it won't," Lois said. "All of that's in your head. I know you're having a rough time; I've been in the front seat for a lot of it. But that doesn't mean that it's going to keep going. You're going to be fine and recover from all this. Let us help you achieve that by giving you a place to stay. Your old furniture is down there, anyway, all set up with the TV hooked up."

Chloe rubbed at her forehead for a minute, eyes squeezed shut. Finally, she sighed and looked at Lois. "Fine, I'll come live here. One bad thing happens to any of you around me and I'm outta here faster than Clark can fly."

"Good thing nothing is going to happen. Tomorrow, after we're all off work, we'll pay your landlord for the next couple months and move all your stuff back here. Well, your bed, since that's basically all you had there besides clothes and other small things."

Lois went on making plans for a little while before they all decided to retire for the night. Chloe walked down the stairs and into the fully carpeted basement. The people before them had apparently liked the notion of basically having a third floor to their house. Chloe looked around as she got down to the bottom of the stairs. She walked over to the couch and sat down, grabbing the remote to her television and turning it on.

She watched for a little while before heading to bed. She found her clothes bag in the room already, figuring Clark must have dropped it there, and changed into a night shirt before getting into the bed. Living in her cousin's basement because her life sucked so much.

"Welcome to the rest of your sad life," she mumbled as she turned over on her side and closed her eyes.


	5. Section 1: Bleak Chapter 4

---- Chapter 4: Stress Relief

Chloe raised an eyebrow as a man eyed her, watching her walk into the "store." It wasn't surprising, considering the owner of the place said he didn't get many women in. The evening sun gave the place an odd coloring, and a worse one to most of the patrons. Why she'd ever let herself be talked into using this place by an old source was beyond her, even if anonymity was the whole point. There had to have been somewhere else that did the same thing, or at least something like it.

Walking up to the counter, the man rolled over in a chair, smiling in a way she could only attribute to the word smarmy. "Miss blonde lady, welcome back."

"How did it go?"

"You checked out fine, as I said you would." Standing up, he reached under the counter and pulled out a small handgun, setting it on the counter. He ran a hand through his greasy hair as Chloe picked it up. "So, are you a gun enthusiast or just looking for a little protection until you get a man around ya?"

"I don't need a man for protection," Chloe said through clenched teeth. "And I don't _really_ need this. It makes me feel better."

"I'm sure it does. Ya want me to show you how to take it apart and clean it?"

With relative ease Chloe took the gun apart and put it on the counter. She looked up at him a second before putting the pieces back together and pointing the unloaded gun at the man's chest. "I think I can handle it." Chloe stuffed the gun into her purse and mentally thanked Lois for teaching her the finer art of taking guns apart and putting them back together when they were kids. Well, this particular gun, at least. Chloe hadn't tempted fate on the bigger guns Lois had gotten her hands on.

"Quite the talent, little blondie."

"Any idiot can do it." Chloe tossed some cash on the counter. "Rounds."

He looked under the counter for a second before pulling out a box and setting it on the counter. "That all I can do for you? We do have a nice selection of other firearms and I have a particularly powerful weapon I keep on my person at all times."

Chloe ignored his ridiculous innuendo and grabbed the box, stuffing it into her purse along with the gun. "I have what I need." She walked out of the place, looking around for a second before melting into a crowd of people walking by.

One Month Later

"Pass it, Chlo. No need to be greedy."

"Gimme a second."

She lit up the one hitter again, inhaling deeply. As the effects hit her she passed it and the lighter over to Blake before a coughing fit overtook her, doubling her over for a second as she attempted to catch her breath. A moment later she slouched back into the couch he had put in his office and smiled as he exhaled and sighed, slouching next to her.

"This is better stuff than you had last week."

"Yeah, I decided to splurge. I was told this weed a cleaner high, and so far I'm inclined to agree."

She hadn't meant to starting smoking pot. After three days of living with Lois and all her plans to get her back into the world as a 'useful member of society instead of a lump of a cousin that worked all day and spent all night drinking alone in the basement' time away had been necessary for mental health. She'd decided to stick around the office late and Blake had asked her if she wanted to join him for a smoke. Figuring he meant cigarettes, she'd said why not; they were supposed to be relaxing. When he'd pulled out the one hitter, though, she'd balked. She'd never been one to condone drug use.

But then he'd gone into a spiel at how relaxing it was, how it had helped him deal with stressful days and running a company. Against all the voices of her friends and family in her head telling her not to, she'd joined him and after a few hits had felt more relaxed than she had in months. Years, almost. She had joined him for a night session of stress relief a couple times a week after that. She smoked for free and didn't have a hangover in the morning. Much better than drinking.

Telling Lois and Clark that she'd been going out drinking with coworkers those nights had led them to being happy she was out and about again. She wasn't sure, but she didn't doubt they'd tell her good job for hooking up at this point. If not the same satisfaction, this was working out just as well these days.

"What are you thinking about?"

Giggling, she ran a hand back through her hair and looked over at Blake. "What I'm doing and where I told Lois and Clark I am."

"Out with the coworkers again, are we?"

"You know it. They're tied up in an investigation of one thing or another at the moment and are just happy that I seem to be getting back out there and finding my way in the world again. I think they'd applaud me for getting laid, or at least Lois would. Clark would just tell me that if I was happy, he was happy. I doubt the sentiment applies to this, though."

She leaned forward and grabbed the one hitter and its case, refilling it before putting the case down and grabbing the lighter. She lit it and inhaled, holding the smoke in as she sat back again. Opening her mouth slightly, she blew the smoke out. She looked over at Blake. "How much did this cost you?"

"Hundred."

Chloe handed him the implements that were in her hands and got up off the couch, walking out of his office to her desk, opening up a drawer and grabbing her purse. Digging past her gun, she grabbed her wallet and pulled out a fifty she'd been intending to use on scotch, which she used most other nights to forget she was living in her cousin's basement, and walked back into the office. She sat down again and handed him the money. "I'm in for half on the next batch."

He tossed the bill back at her. "Nope. This is my treat to you because I can afford it."

"And I'm no mooch." She took the fifty and stuffed it into his pocket. "I'm already living rent and utilities free, I rarely buy food and this was money intended for scotch anyway. This is not extending me in any way."

She smiled when he acquiesced and took another hit. At least she still got her way sometimes.

"Sorry I wasn't available to do this last night but my mom flew into town unexpectedly. Apparently I don't visit enough."

Chloe smiled at Blake and waved it off. "I recall you telling me that. Does she fly into town unexpectedly often?"

"Not as often as she could but more often than I'm comfortable with. I know that my visits are infrequent, but if she would tell me before she comes I could be prepared, or at least clean my house."

"That's probably the point," Chloe said as she sat down. "I'm betting she wants to catch you with a woman in your apartment or something like that. If nothing else, she probably wants to visit you while you have plans so she can meet her, like her and pressure you."

"What if she didn't like her?"

Chloe shrugged. "No idea. She might say grandchildren are grandchildren, but I'd have to meet her to tell."

"You want to?"

Chloe stared at him a minute before breaking out into laughter. "Uh, no. I refuse to allow you to give your mother false hope by parading me in front of her. It'd be like me taking you to dinner at my cousin's house: there would be insinuations and digging around, and Lois and Clark are very good at digging."

"Yeah, but if my mom liked you she might get off my case a bit. I'm fairly certain she'd like you because you two are oddly similar in some areas."

"I can never tell how much I like or dislike that compliment." She thought about it a second before speaking again. "All I know is Mark's mom loved me and my mom never got to meet any of my boyfriends."

"Aren't you lucky."

He sat down next to her and handed her a pipe and lighter. She sparked it and passed it to him a moment later. Exhaling the smoke, she raised an eyebrow at him. "Obviously you need a refresher on my recent life."

"I don't," he said breathily as smoke flew out of his mouth.

"Good, because I don't feel like ruining my high."

She took the pipe from him and watched as he got up and walked to his desk. She put the pipe and lighter down as she held the smoke she'd just inhaled, and caught a small bag he tossed her. She let it out slowly before speaking. "What's this?"

"Your half of what I bought."

She rolled her eyes and sighed. "This is for both of us, Blake."

"Nope. What we smoke here is my treat. Anything you buy through me is yours and yours alone, not to be smoked on the premises. No exceptions."

"That's nice, but what am I supposed to use to smoke this?"

He smiled and reached into his desk before walking back around and handing her a rolled up brown paper bag. She eyed him for a second before unfurling it and reaching in. She pulled out a grinder, a small pipe and a one hitter that looked just like a cigarette in a case that mirrored a pack of them. She looked at them a moment before looking back at him. "You got me these?"

"I did. I figured you might want to smoke at home sometime but lacked the means. Therefore, you now have everything you need."

"That's true, but I doubt I ever will."

"Then don't do it at home, but stop somewhere short of your cousin's house and walk the rest of the way. There's a reason that it looks the way it does. The smell might give you away, but be discrete and you should be fine."

"Thanks," Chloe said as she got up. She smiled at him a second before she went out to her desk and put her new things in her purse and grabbed her phone's earpiece. Dialing up a local pizza place, Chloe got put on hold. Walking back into the office, she sat down next to Blake and took another hit before he noticed the earpiece.

"What's that for?"

"I'm ordering us dinner."

"What are you getting?"

"Pizza. Two extra large."

A few minutes later it was ordered and they sat in a comfortable silence. Chloe broke it. "I'm really looking forward to that pizza now. One of my better ideas."

"I agree. It sounds awesome, especially with all the meat on it."

Half an hour later Chloe was walking back into the office holding two pizzas, handing Blake one and holding the other for herself. She sat down and opened up her box, pulling out a meat laden slice and taking a big bite. Moaning as she chewed, Chloe swallowed and took a drink Blake handed to her. She took a sip and immediately tasted the rum in it.

"Good call. Rum and coke is rarely a bad idea."

"Don't I know it."

Chloe had soon devoured half of her pizza and as good as more sounded, she was stuffed. "God, that was awesome." Eying the box, she leaned forward and pulled out the smallest piece she could find. Taking a bite, she felt sauce drip down her chin and laughed for a moment. She laughed more as she heard Blake start laughing at her. "It's so awesome I just had to have it all over me."

"There are worse things to have on you than pizza."

"I've probably had them all on me at one point or another." Blake laughed at her and Chloe joined in. It really was pretty funny.

Chloe walked up into the kitchen and opened the fridge, grabbing the apple juice and a glass before pouring herself some. She replaced the juice before taking a sip and walking to the dining room table, setting it down at her spot and walking back into the kitchen. After getting the coffee maker going she grabbed a bagel and popped it into the toaster, pulling it out a few seconds later and taking a crispy bite. She smiled at Lois as she walked into the kitchen.

"So, it's Tuesday night. That usually means you're out with the coworkers drinking. Mind if I join you tonight?"

Chloe forced herself to keep chewing as she walked wide eyed to the table. Schooling her face to look normal, she looked over at Lois. "Actually it got called off tonight. Everybody else has things going on."

"Really? That's too bad." Lois walked over and sat down at the table with her, pulling off a little piece of the bagel for herself. "Why don't we make a night of it for ourselves? We can go out to a bar and see if we can't find you somebody to bring home."

"What? No. What? No."

Lois rubbed at the corner of an eye for a second as she spoke. "Why not? You've been going out with them for what, about six weeks now? Not once have I seen a guy sneaking out of the basement or heard you coming home in the wee hours of the night after a one night stand."

"I thought you were just happy I was going out with people!"

"I am. Now I want to be happy that you're back in the game."

Chloe groaned. "Oh, come on..."

"It's been five months, Chloe. It's time to get back out there. I know I tried to get your started dating back in July and I figured that would go over poorly, which it did. But it's been five months. It's time to move on and find yourself somebody to love, or at least use for a night."

"I can't believe what I'm hearing," Chloe said. "You've never said anything like this to me before. Espousing me having a one night stand? Are you kidding me?"

"If it gets you back out there, then I'm all for it!"

"Jesus, we're having a conversation better suited for college students."

Lois rolled her eyes and got up, walking over to the coffee maker and pouring two cups. She brought them over and Chloe took a quick sip. "No, we're not. We're having a conversation that relates to my baby cousin being afraid to get back into the world of sex and dating. I understand you've been hurt, but I will not allow you to end up alone because of it."

"You won't _allow_ it?"

Lois shook her head. "I won't. In fact, if you haven't had some form of a significant relationship within the year I'm going to take it as a personal affront. You know how well I react to personal affronts."

"You can't write an article and take me down, Lois. I've already been taken down so far that my feet can feel the slightest touch of Dante's Inferno."

"What I can do is start setting you up on blind dates and making sure you show up."

Chloe's eyes widened. "You wouldn't."

Lois's eyes narrowed. "I would, and the only way to get out of them would be for you to get into a real relationship."

Chloe hated blind dates. She'd been set up on about five of them the last time she was single and none had been better than an out and out disaster. Most started well and ended with so many things going poorly that she wanted to either punch the guy for being a jackass or punch herself for getting talked into it. The last had been the worst and the one that had caused her to completely swear off of blind dates. What Lana had been thinking, setting her up with a sexist bastard, she would never know.

"Fine," she said through clenched teeth.

Lois smiled a self satisfied smile and took what Chloe thought looked more like a victory sip than a regular sip. "Alright. Now, we're still going to go out tonight. I'll call Lucy and we'll hit a bar."

"She's five months pregnant, Lo."

"Bars have non-alcoholic drinks."

"What about Jacob? If Clark has to run off to save somebody..."

"...then Jimmy will be here to watch my son. There's a baseball game on tonight, I'm sure, so they can watch that together."

Chloe let her head drop in defeat. Nothing. She was going to be forced into all this because she could find no way out of it. Dammit, all those years of covering for Clark not being there and now she'd lost her touch. "Alright, we'll go out. We're going to be just about the worst trio in bar history, though."

"Why do you say that?"

"You're married, Lucy is married and pregnant and I'm emotionally crippled and not looking to do anything but drink and fend off my cousins and their need to fix my life."

"And hook up."

"I plan on being too busy with the last part to do that."

"We'll see."

Chloe dropped her purse into its drawer and buzzed Blake's phone as she sat down.

"What's up, Chloe?"

"You got a couple minutes?"

"Always. Come on in."

Feeling silly for having bothered to sit down, Chloe stood up and walked into the office, smiling at Blake as he stood up and walked around his desk, leaning back on it as she got to him. "So, what requires the face to face?"

"I'm not going to be able to make it tonight."

"That's a shame. What came up?"

Chloe rubbed at her forehead and sighed. "Lois wanted to go out with me tonight when I 'went out with the coworkers.' I told her that it had been cancelled because everybody had other things to do, which prompted her to set up a night of her, her sister and me going out to a bar. Best part is they're conspiring to find me somebody to have sex with."

"Wish I had cousins like that," she heard him mumble. She raised an eyebrow at him and crossed her arms over her chest, and when he looked up he shrugged. "My cousins were never so giving as to find me somebody. They were more of the type to take the girl I was talking to."

"Nice guys."

"Eh, I would have done the same."

Chloe rolled her eyes. "Anyway, I'm tied up with that tonight. We still on for Friday?"

"I'll be here if you are."

"Good. Sorry about tonight."

"Don't worry about it. We'll just get extra baked on Friday to make up for it."

Chloe took her beer from Lois as she held it out to her, giving her a tight smile and taking a sip as her cousin sat down next to her. "So, who do we like around here, Chlo?"

"Alcoholic beverages. They don't think to try and talk to me, they just make me happy."

"I've known guys like that," Lucy said as she drank her non-alcoholic something or other. Chloe hadn't caught the name of it, and didn't care to. The thing looked like it had more fruit in it that liquid. "They can be fun."

Chloe held up her drink and smiled. "Too bad I'm already happy." She looked over to Lois, but found that she wasn't there. She gave the room a once over and didn't see her before looking back to Lucy. "Where the hell did Lois go?"

"Don't know. I'll go look for her."

Lucy disappeared into the crowd and Chloe rolled her eyes as she drank some of her beer and sat it back down on the table. Fantastic. She'd had to pass up a great night of relaxation and NOT thinking about any of this crap so she could go out, get abandoned and end up drinking all by her lonesome. If they weren't back by the time she finished this beer she was bailing and trying to get in contact with Blake.

She felt somebody tap her on the shoulder and turned to find Lois pushing a guy at her. "Have you met Keith?"

Chloe gaped at Lois as she stepped back and gave her the thumbs up before turning around and walking towards where Lucy has disappeared. She snapped her jaw shut and looked up at the guy Lois had brought over. "You must be Keith."

"And I'm told you're Chloe. Mind if I join you?"

Chloe shrugged and grabbed her beer, motioning across the table for him to sit down. He was fairly good looking. Blond hair, blue eyes, looked like he worked out with a bit of frequency. If they had children they might be accused of trying to propagate the Aryan race, even if her eyes weren't technically blue.

"So, Keith, what did my cousin tell you about me?"

"Virtually nothing. She came over, bought me a drink and told me that you'd had your eye on me ever since you walked in. After that, she walked me over and the rest is history."

"Yeah," she mumbled as she took a drink. Swallowing, she smiled at him briefly. "Why don't you tell me about yourself?"

Chloe zoned out as he started speaking, not caring one iota at what he was saying. She glanced over at the bar and caught the eye of the bartender, holding up her bottle and shaking it a bit until he nodded and had another sent over. She smiled at the appropriate times in his story, nodded and even said the occasional word.

"...and that's how I ended up here tonight."

"Wow," Chloe said, downing a big gulp of her beer. "That's quite the story."

"I like to think so. So, what's your story?"

Chloe frowned for a second before sighing. May as well at least play along so that Lois wouldn't send over somebody new. "Long relationship ended about five months ago, amid some other turmoil in my life. Heartbreak of numerous sorts and all that. Time has passed so my cousins are dead set on seeing me back in the dating scene so that I can find the big happy they both have." Wow, putting it like that was probably NOT going to keep him around. What a shame.

"You sound real into it."

Chloe shrugged. "What can I say? It was this or get bitched at, and since they're paying for drinks at least the night has that going for it."

He sat back a bit and eyed her. "You never had your eye on me and this has no chance of going anywhere, does it?"

"Not in the least, no."

Getting up out of his chair, he nodded and gave a small wave before walking off towards the bar. Chloe watched him go for a second before grabbing her beer and downing the rest of it. Walking up to the bar she got another one and went to find Lois and Lucy. She walked through the dimly lit place for a moment before finding them sitting in a booth near the back. She sat down next to Lucy. "Sorry guys, I struck out."

Lois frowned at her and Lucy smacked her on the arm with the back of her hand. She scowled at each of them in turn. "I told you that your machinations to get me all sexed up were not going to work tonight! Just because you two Lane women feel that I should be doing something does not mean I should be actually doing it."

"I tend to disagree with that statement," Lois said before taking a drink of her vodka cranberry. Chloe had always thought it a kinda girly drink for her, but she liked what she liked. Maybe she'd just gotten bored of drinking other things after her travels and whatnot.

"I thought you might. Anyway, this night isn't going to lead to anything, so I'm going to go." Downing the rest of her beer, she started scooting towards the end of the seat.

"What? You've only talked to one guy!"

"And that's one more than I wanted to talk to. I'll see you at home later tonight, Lo. Luce, I'm sure I'll see you soon." Getting up, Chloe smiled at each and walked off, making her way through the people. When she got outside she pulled out her phone and scanned down the list of names until she got to the one she wanted. She got it to dialing and waited a second before there was an answer.

"Hello?"

"Blake! You still at the office?"

"I might be. Getting out of your forced night out early?"

Chloe smiled. "Depends on if you're at the office and could use a bit of relaxation."

"Head on over. Pretty sure I'll still be in the office, and I could definitely use a stress release. The fact that it's ten and I'm still working after coming into the office fourteen hours ago is extremely depressing."

"Don't worry, I'm on my way," Chloe said around her smile. She ran out and waved down a cab that happened to be passing the bar and got inside, giving the driver the address to her work. She sat back and closed her eyes for a few minutes as the drive went by. She opened them again when the driver started talking and she made small talk for the rest of the way.

Heading inside the building, she made her way through the empty office back to Blake's office. She saw him sitting at his desk and closed the door behind her when she walked in, grinning. "You are a sight for sore eyes, Blake."

He smiled at her and rubbed at an eye with a finger. "I could not agree more. If you hadn't come by I might have worked myself until there was sunlight, and at that point I would feel bad about not working when there was sunlight to be wasted."

Chloe dropped her purse on the coffee table in front of the couch and sat down, smoothing her skirt out a bit. "Aren't you too young to be a workaholic?"

"I'll be thirty in October, so that depends on what you define as too young. I thought you knew how old I am?"

Chloe snapped her mouth shut so that it couldn't hang open and ran a hand back through her hair. "If you told me your age I clearly forgot it. I'm pretty sure you never did, though, and I never would have placed you within five years of thirty."

He walked over and sat down next to her, handing her the pipe and lighter. "Most people don't. It's been an affliction of sorts since I was in high school. When I was a senior people routinely asked me if I was a freshman, and even if I had skipped a grade to get there. I've been able to use it to my advantage in the odd business deal where they don't take a kid seriously, though. It'll also be nice when I'm fifty and don't look it."

Chloe coughed a bit as he finished talking and handed everything to him. A moment later she exhaled and inhaled deeply. "Yeah, I can see where that would have been annoying back when you don't want to look younger than you are. Looking ten when you're fifteen can't be pleasant."

"I was pretty short right up until high school, too, so I looked young in all ways. Going in I was five foot nothing." He paused a second and took a hit, releasing the smoke a moment later. "By end of freshman year I was about 5'8" but people still couldn't see past the baby face."

She'd through high school hell, with meteor infected popping up every time she turned around. Looking young during those four years had never been something that bothered to cross her mind. Normal high school would have been weird. Chloe took another hit and released a thin stream of smoke at him. "I'm so very sorry that high school was tough for you."

He grinned at her. "So am I."

They sat in silence for a while until the bowl was cashed. Chloe cracked her neck a couple of times and watched Blake walk over to the mini fridge, pulling out a couple candy bars. She caught the one he tossed at her and opened it up, taking a big bite out of it. God, she loved chocolate when she was high. Finishing it off as he sat down next to her again, she watched him finish his off and used her thumb to wipe some chocolate off the corner of his mouth.

He looked over at her, smiling, and leaned over until his lips were grazing hers. She put a hand on the back of his head and pulled his mouth tight against hers, relishing the feel of his lips. She slipped her tongue against his mouth, demanding access and getting it quickly, her desires heating and pooling at an almost alarming rate

Chloe grabbed at his pants, pulling his belt off and unbuttoning them, drawing his zipper quickly and shoving his pants down around his ankles. They each pulled away for a breath and started removing clothes. Chloe puled off her panties from under her skirt and tossed them on the floor before moving over and straddling his bare groin. "I'm on the pill. You got anything infectious I should know about?"

"I'm clean."

She grabbed him, grinning as she worked him up and down slowly with her hand before positioning him at her entrance and lowering herself onto him. God, that felt good. She breathed deeply, eyes closed, clenching her muscles around him a couple times before she started moving slowly, grinding against him in an incredibly pleasurable way.

Opening her eyes, she smiled at his face. He looked surprised, probably that this was happening. Lois had told her to have sex, so she was having sex.

Gasping, she rode him like she never had another man. He grabbed her butt with both hands a moment before sliding them to her hips and started pulling her into a faster rhythm, and she happily acquiesced. So close. So very...

Her toes curled and her grip on his shoulders tightened before she cried out in ecstasy. She felt like her arms had turned to jelly and fell against him a little as she felt him finish. Both breathing deeply, quiet engulfed them for a moment before Chloe started giggling. Good release tonight.


	6. Section 1: Bleak Chapter 5

---- Chapter 5: Purpose

Chloe walked into the house, smiling as she headed down into the basement and put her purse down, taking the gun and one hitter out. She walked over to her room and into the closet, putting them into a box up on a shelf. She let the lid drop back down on it and after changing into some jeans and a t-shirt, headed back upstairs to help with dinner preparations.

When she got up into the kitchen Lois was sitting with Jacob at the breakfast bar and Clark was walking outside with a plate of meats Chloe couldn't make out. She looked at Lois. "What's for dinner?"

Lois made a face but didn't look up when she spoke. "Steak."

Chloe rolled her eyes and walked over to the fridge, opening it up and pulling out a bottle of water. She opened it up and took a drink, wiping some off her lip with the back of a finger as she walked over to her cousin. "It's been two weeks, Lois. You can't still be mad at me for telling you that you aren't right about my stuff and then leaving."

"Give me some credit, Chloe. I'm not mad that you don't think I'm right because goodness knows we've had our disagreements in the past where we both thought we were right. I am mad that you won't even try, though. You're withdrawn from the world, only leaving the house when you go to work."

Chloe sighed and took another drink. She had yet to tell Lois about Blake, mostly because she wasn't sure what to tell her. 'Hey, I light up with my boss a couple times a week to relieve stress from my shitty life and started using him for sex, too!' That would probably be too blunt, really. Funny, in all likelihood, but she didn't even know where this sex with Blake thing was going and Lois was definitely never finding out about the weed.

If telling Lois about the sex could fix this undue anger and help things get back to normal, though... hell, it's not like telling Lois could make things any more confusing. Sleeping with her boss after having taken up getting stoned with him was a murky making set of events.

Putting down her bottle of water, she smiled at Lois and picked up Jacob, smiling at him as she walked over to the front door and pulled his jacket off of a hook. She got him into it and walked to the backdoor, opening it and walking out to Clark, who was standing next to the grill. He looked at her inquisitively as she placed his son in his arms.

"Lois and I need to talk, and while I love your little boy, he doesn't need to be hearing any of what I'm going to say even without understanding it."

"Um... ok?"

Turning around, Chloe didn't give him a chance to respond further before walking back into the house and over to Lois. She sat down on the chair next to her and pulled her bottle of water over, taking a quick sip before getting started.

"I have never gone out with coworkers for drinks."

Lois looked over at her, eyebrow raised. "Where the hell have you been two nights a week, then?"

"I've been with Blake."

"Why?"

Taking another sip of water, she swallowed and breathed deeply. "When it started, I just needed a couple nights a week where I could be in a stress free environment and relax. We sat together and enjoyed having no stress for a few hours." That was a good way of saying what she'd been doing without actually saying what she'd been doing. "A couple weeks ago, after I left the bar, I called him and went to the office, one thing led to another and... well, you wanted me to get back in the game, right?"

Lois worked her jaw a couple times before closing her mouth and looking away. She looked over again a minute later, still looking perplexed. "Your boss? Isn't he six or seven years younger than you are?"

"Not that it should matter, but it turns out he's turning thirty a week from tomorrow."

"No way."

"Yup. Had no idea until he told me he was that old. Negligible age difference, really."

Lois turned her head away again and Chloe finished off her bottle of water. She got up and walked over to the fridge, refilling it from the water dispenser and putting it in the fridge door to keep it cold until the steaks were ready. She walked back over slowly and leaned against the bar, watching Lois as she attempted to put everything together in her head. When she finally looked up, she was smiling slightly.

"Thank you for telling me."

"Of course I'm telling you, Lois. We're still us, and I still like talking to you. I just waited until now because I needed something that was just mine, something just I knew about in this mess I've made of my life. You know all my secrets," she said, knowing that was a lie, "and I live in your house, so I just needed something that was my own for a little while. And before you say anything, I know that I'm sleeping with my boss, which probably won't end well, but it's happening and that talk can wait."

Lois smiled at her. "I understand." She got up and walked around the breakfast bar, pulling Chloe into a hug. "I love you, cuz."

"Love you too, Lo."

Chloe put the finishing touches on a memo she'd typed up and printed out half a dozen of them. Grabbing them, she walked back to the HR department and handed them to the guy at the main desk. "Pass 'em out to everybody, will ya?"

"Sure thing, Chloe."

She walked back to her desk and sat down, going through a few papers before her phone buzzed on her ear, the light on the desk indicating it was Blake. She pushed the button on the earpiece. "What can I do for you, Blake?"

"Chloe, will you come in here please?"

Chloe held a smile back and put her earpiece down on the desk, setting the message to play while she was in his office. It had been nearly a month since his birthday and they were still having sex. They'd yet to leave the office before ripping each other's clothes off, or even eat dinner together at a restaurant, but it was nice just having the contact. It was a retreat from a chilly world that grew more and more chilly by the day. They were _really_ good at it, too.

Walking into the office, Chloe closed the door behind her. She sauntered up to the desk, swaying her hips a little more than necessary, but her smile melted off when she saw Blake with his head in his hands, leaning on the desk. "Is something wrong?"

He looked up and smiled softly a second before his face fell. "That's what I wanted to talk to you about, actually."

Chloe pulled up a chair in front of his desk, sitting down and folding her hands in her lap. "Alright, whatever's going on, we'll see what can be done about it." Jesus, that sounded way more coupley than she'd intended, but no turning back now.

"There's nothing to be done, really." He looked at her a second, and his face feel even further before he spoke. "I've sold the company."

Chloe gaped a second before smiling. "That's great news! What are you so glum about?"

"Well it's just..."

"...who he sold it to, Chloe."

Chloe's heart froze and her eyes went wide. Blake mouthed the words 'I'm sorry' at her before standing up and walking behind her. She stared at the wall before turning, finding Blake standing next to Lex. He just watched her, hands in his pockets. His sick smile was so self satisfied that she thought she might throw up. She looked at Blake.

"You sold it to _him_?"

"I'm so sorry, Chloe, but he offered me twice what I thought I could get in another two years, when things are really up and going. I'd have been an idiot to turn him down."

"You're a monumental idiot to accept his offer! It's Lex Luthor! You told me that my article opened your eyes to who he really is!"

"Mr. Stanton is a shrewd businessman, Chloe. He knows a good deal when it looks him in the face, and sometimes we get into business with people we don't like. I refuse to do such a thing, though, which is why I had one little requirement for my purchase of this very promising company." He looked over at Blake, who gulped and looked at her. "Mr. Stanton?"

Blake took a step forward and squared his shoulders a bit before speaking. "Chloe, I'm sorry, but you're fired." Chloe felt a tear trickle down her cheek as she stared at Blake. She'd never known that she could be so angry that she cried. "You, uh, you need to leave the building now."

Chloe stared at him a second longer before transferring her gaze to Lex, who was still wearing his self satisfied smile.

"F-ck you, Lex." She looked back to Blake. "And an even more emphatic f-ck you to you, Blake. You deserve whatever you get from this."

After another second she pushed her way between them and grabbed her purse from her desk, walking out of the office.

The cab ride home was silent and after paying the driver, she walked into the house and down into the basement, grabbing her gun and putting it in the box where she kept it. She was about to put her hitter in there with it and her pipe when she stopped herself and looked at it. Nobody was home, and she needed it.

Fucking Blake Stanton. He knew what Lex was and he STILL sold his company to him! What the hell was he thinking? Did he just want to screw her one way then screw her another? Had he even thought about it for a second when Lex had told him that she had to be fired for the sale to go through?

Standing in the backyard, Chloe lit her hitter and inhaled deeply. It was the first really cold day of the year, with light snow floating down from a gray sky, which was perfect for the shit that was going on. Pulling her coat a little tighter, she lit it again and inhaled as much as she could, holding it for a moment before she got caught in a fit of coughing. That lasted a minute and she took one more hit before walking back inside, feeling the anger just a bit less.

The rest of the morning and the afternoon passed quickly, with Chloe taking up drinking when her high finally wore off. She never turned on the television or radio, not caring to have anything interrupt her silence. She drank slowly, not to get drunk so much as just take the edge of the day off.

Fucking Lex Luthor. The bastard had started everything by getting her fired from the Planet, and now apparently had decided to f-ck her over once more, not even letting her keep an assistant's job. It was never enough for him to just make somebody miserable. No, he had to go in for the kill and really try to show that he could do anything he wanted. It would never stop unless somebody finally stopped him.

Chloe heard the front door open and the happy squeals of a now one year old Jacob. She sat up a little but didn't bother to hide her bottle of scotch that sat on the coffee table. It wasn't worth the effort.

"Chloe? You never beat us home."

She looked over at Lois, who was ruffling some snow out of her hair. Chloe saw Clark and Jacob make their way upstairs out of the corner of her eye as Lois nodded towards the liquor. "What's with the drink?"

"Special occasion: The guy I've been sleeping with sold his company to Lex. The only condition of the sale was that I get fired. As such, I am once again without work."

"What?" Lois walked over and sat down next to her, gaping. "Are you kidding me?"

"Couldn't make this up if I tried. I was always much better with truth than fiction."

"Are you... well, that would be a stupid question. How are you doing?"

Chloe took a sip of her drink, eyes wide as she nodded slowly. "I've felt worse. This is right up there with everything else that's happened, though, because I got screwed by a guy I thought wouldn't do that to me. Another nice one bites the dust, I guess. Damn shame you, Lucy and Lana got the only good ones left in the state of Kansas."

"Oh hon," Lois said as she pulled Chloe into a sideways hug. "I'm so sorry."

Chloe rested her head on Lois, sighing as she wiped away a tear with her thumb. "Better I know now rather than sometime in the future when he found a girl he liked better than me. At least this time I only lose out to money. Apparently twice the amount of what a company is worth down the line is how much it takes to not care about me."

Yawning, Chloe got out of bed and pulled on her robe. She ran a hand through her hair and grumbled as being fired three days previously popped into her head. God, she wanted to hurt Lex. If she could get her hands on him right now, wringing his neck would be just about the most satisfying thing she'd ever experienced. If only she could do it and not land in jail.

Putting her hands in the pockets to keep them warm, she walked out of her room and to the stairs, heading up to the main part of the house. She walked into the kitchen and grabbed a cup out of the dishwasher before heading to the coffee machine and pouring herself some. She heard a noise and looked over at the dining room table, where she found Lois spooning some food into Jacob's mouth. Lois smiled at her after wiping some food off of him.

"Morning, Chlo."

"Hey. I thought you guys would have taken off to the office by now."

Lois shook her head as Jacob took another bite of whatever she was giving him. "Clark already headed to the office. I'm covering a news conference this afternoon and told Perry that I was going to take the morning off to spend with Jacob and you before leaving yesterday."

"Oh." Chloe took a sip of her coffee and shrugged. "Are you taking Jacob with you?"

"Actually, I thought I'd leave him here with you."

"Ok then. Did you have anything specific in mind for this morning? I hadn't planned on anything more than sitting around in the basement all day."

"Nope. Sitting around and talking with my cousin sounds like a good morning to me."

Chloe nodded and smiled before drinking some more of her coffee. While it apparently wasn't going to be as quiet a morning as she had hoped for, talking with Lois might not be so bad. Might be nice to talk instead of hold everything in. She walked over and sat down, smiling at Jacob as he looked at her for a second before getting back to the food.

"So, tell me, how have you been feeling?"

Chloe opened her mouth to speak, but shut it again quickly. She was going to say fine, but that would have been a lie. This time, she was going to tell the truth. "You know how you describe your love for Jacob? The total, complete love I probably don't comprehend very well?"

Lois nodded and smiled at Jacob. "I vaguely recall that, don't I little guy?"

Chloe took another sip of coffee. "Well, think of that, but replace the love for Jacob with anger at life, and Lex in particular."

Lois looked over at her. "What?"

"Since I got fired on Monday, I haven't felt anything but angry. I wake up and I feel angry. I sit and watch TV and I'm angry. If I could get everything that has happened out of my head, I might feel better, but I'm stuck with my knowledge. The only reason you haven't really seen me blow a fuse or something is because I keep it in check while I'm with you guys. I have some pillows downstairs that have taken a beating, though."

After being quiet for a moment, Chloe spoke again as she frowned. "I have been overwhelmingly angry for days and it's starting to scare me a little because I'm getting used to it, and it's starting to be normal instead of strange."

"You're getting used to being angry all the time? How?"

Chloe pointed at Jacob. "How did you get used to loving Jacob?"

Lois spread her hands out and shrugged. "I got used to it because that's just the way things were after he was born. It just... was."

"That's exactly how I feel about being angry. It's just the way things are now. I know it's only been three days but it's been so mind consuming that I would drown in it if I didn't do something to adapt to it."

Lois didn't say anything after that so Chloe sat back in her chair and sipped at her coffee for a couple minutes, letting Lois think whatever she needed to think. She watched as her cousin just sat and stared off into space, frowning.

"Dada!"

Chloe looked over at Jacob, who was obviously wanting to get back to breakfast and expressing that through his favorite word. Reaching over, she pulled his food from in front of Lois and spun his high chair so that he was facing her. She got a tiny spoonful of the peas Jacob was eating, not quite sure how he could enjoy them so much, and gave him a bite. After a couple more she decided that she should probably pull Lois out of her stupor.

"If you are trying to think things through, I'm sorry to interrupt but we're starting to get worried. As much as he likes me, I think Jacob still likes you a little better." Lois blinked and looked up, looking over at her and Jacob after a second. "Hey, there ya are cuz. Have a good think?"

"Uh, yeah. How long did I space out?"

"A few minutes. Jacob was still hungry, though, so I took up the mantle of spoon user. What happened?"

Lois stood up and paced a little before answering. "I was trying to imagine how you feel. I was trying to figure out what it would be like to have the same strength of feeling that I have about Jacob, except have it be anger. I couldn't do it, though. I couldn't imagine being that angry."

Chloe smiled at her sadly. "Good. I wouldn't want anybody I care about to have to feel like this. I want you and everybody else happy and not able to even imagine what I feel like."

"I want to understand how you feel, Chloe."

Chloe spooned another bite into Jacob's mouth, not looking at Lois. "I don't want you to understand how I feel. I don't want anyone to have to understand how I feel."

Carrying a sleeping Jacob up to his room, Chloe smiled for a second as she put him down in his crib. Looking down on him, she felt peaceful for a moment before sighing and grabbing the baby monitor. Walking back downstairs, she planted herself on the living room couch and put her feet up on the coffee table as she grabbed the remote and turned the TV on. She flipped to a local financial channel and tossed the remote aside.

The anchors were talking about something to do with inflation until the cut to a podium that said LexCorp on it, and Chloe grabbed the remote again, turning up the volume.

"...the news that LexCorp has bought the small company Stanton Technologies. The potential it has upside is big, but I can't understand this purchase right now. Even with all the upside, the reported amount that he offered for the company is extremely high. Mr. Luthor has always been a good businessman, as seen by his success, but this one just doesn't make a lot of sense."

"Alright, off that we see that the LexCorp spokesperson is stepping up to the podium, so we go there live."

"Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Tracy Thompson, head of public relations for LexCorp. This conference is to officially announce the acquisition of Stanton Technologies into the holdings of LexCorp. I have a short statement that Mr. Luthor would like me to read before we get to questions."

"'Stanton Technologies is a promising young company that I've had my eye on for some time now. With proper guidance and financing I feel strongly that its innovations will only add positively to the LexCorp family and bring about change in the world.'"

Some time now. Ha! Lex had probably could have cared less that the company existed until Blake had hired her as his assistant, the rat f-cking bastard. The spokesperson put the paper down and pulled off her glasses, indicating the question part of the session. She pointed at a reporter that was off camera and Chloe turned up the volume a little so she could hear it.

"Lois Lane, Daily Planet." What? _This_ was the news conference she was going to? Chloe turned up the volume a little more to make sure she could hear Lois. "I'm curious as to why this deal happened. The company is a good year away from being worth half this much money according to numerous business insiders. What prompted Lex to pay at least twice, if not more than that, what he could have with no competing offers in the mix?"

The lady at the podium shuffled papers a second before answering. "Mr. Luthor feels strongly that this could be a great company in the near future, and wanted no doubt left in Mr. Stanton's mind that he meant that. He wanted to act swiftly and decisively to bring the company into the LexCorp family." She pointed at somebody else and Chloe turned the volume down.

God damn Lex Luthor. The man had so much money that he could afford to throw away that much just to screw her over! She knew as well as anybody in Stanton Tech that it was nowhere near worth what had been offered, and because of that Blake's pupils had turned into little dollar signs and he'd sold the damn thing to a guy less trustworthy that the devil.

Getting up off the couch, Chloe walked over and grabbed her phone, scrolling through names until she got what she wanted. She listened to it ring a couple times before it was answered. "Hey, it's me. I need your help with something."

"Where are you headed, Chloe?"

Taking her hand off the door, she gritted her teeth a second before smiling and turning around. "I was just going to go downtown and walk around for awhile, clear my head."

Lois walked over, looking confused. "You could always just walk around the neighborhood instead of going all the way into the city to walk around after dark. I assume you're probably safer around here."

All she wanted to do was go to a shooting range and blow off a little steam. Was it so much to ask that she be allowed to do that in peace? Well, maybe it was, considering that neither Lois nor Clark knew that she even owned a gun, let alone had started going to a shooting range a few days after she was fired, firing it and imagining she was shooting Lex right between the eyes. Probably not healthy, but it _really_ made her feel better.

"Y-yeah, I could do that, but..." What excuse? There had to be an excuse! "...um..." She needed to think of something! What could she use? Thanksgiving was coming up but it was still four days away... yes! "There's a pre-Thanksgiving Christmas sale and I wanted to go buy you a present."

"Wouldn't the place be closing right as you got there?"

Son of a bitch, it wasn't happening tonight. "You know what, you're probably right. I guess I will just take that walk around the neighborhood."

"Are you ok? You're being kinda weird."

"I'm fine. Just gonna go walk."

Chloe walked outside and headed away from the house, deeper into the neighborhood. When she was a couple streets away she pulled out her hitter and got it loaded before lighting it and inhaling as deeply as she could. A moment later she took another hit, exhaling not long after. It wasn't how she'd wanted to spend her night, but since she wasn't getting a release from shooting smoking would have to do.

"This is stupid. I don't care what he's put you through, doing this alone is a bad idea."

"I don't want to hear it. I called you for help, not a lecture on why what I'm doing isn't what I should be doing. With or without your help I'm going in there to get the evidence I need to take him down."

"Fine, but why are you doing it alone? You've got a veritable cornucopia of people to help you, and a hell of a lot of them have special abilities or powers that could help your efforts. Let somebody, anybody, help. Hell, A.C. would be better than nothing and he wouldn't even be able to SMELL water!"

Chloe turned away from him and looked out the window of the clock tower at the skyline of Metropolis. The buildings really gleamed during the day. Grinding her teeth together, she turned around and faced Ollie again. He'd insisted on a face to face meeting before he helped her. She knew that he was going to try to talk her into taking some backup, but if she took anyone she wouldn't be able to do what she needed to do to get rid of her anger.

"No. Lex screwed me out of the Daily Planet and then actually bought a company just so he could fire me! This is my story and I'm going to get it without help!"

"Are you sure it wasn't just a coincidence? It seems an awful lot of money to spend for Lex to fire you."

"It's Lex _f-cking_ Luthor. Would you really put it past him?"

Ollie stared at her a moment before he sagged a little and sat down. "Fine, you'll have what you need in a couple days. If anything happens to you... be careful, alright? You matter to everybody, more than you know."

"I'll be fine, Ollie. I'm just going to get some information to prove myself to the world."

She hated lying to him, and anybody else she thought of as a friend, but she was going to do what she had to. This situation needed closure and there was only one way she could think of to get any.

Chloe opened up an envelope and turned it over, dropping a small pass key, a couple contact lenses and a latex glove onto her bed. After getting the contacts in, she stuffed the latex glove and the pass key into her pocket.

Now that she had what she needed she wasn't wasting any time. Walking into her closet, she grabbed the box that held her gun and clips. She was really glad that she had taken the time to get a gun from a guy that wasn't technically a legal salesman. Her gun was registered to a woman that had died around the time she'd gone in to get one so tracing it back to her was unlikely, especially once she was rid of it. Fingerprints were easy enough to wipe away.

All the anger in her had finally gone nuclear, leaving her with one mindset. The only way to fix this was to make sure that Lex Luthor couldn't do to anybody else what he'd done to her. Others may have doubted that he bought the company, spending hundreds of millions just to screw her life up further, but she knew it was true. They just couldn't admit she was right.

Grabbing an old messenger bag she'd bought in college, she dropped the clips and unloaded gun in. Getting the bag situated, she headed upstairs quietly. She grabbed Lois's keys and slipped out the front door, jogging over to her car. Getting it started, she backed out of the driveway and headed towards the city.

Tonight, Lex Luthor died and Chloe had her revenge.


	7. Section 2: The Other Side Prologue

Part Two: The Other Side

----Prologue: Fortune

"_Are you actually leaving this time, or are you just going to say you are and instead end up back at the farm with another obscure family member that appears as if she never existed until just that moment?"_

_Lois grinned as Clark rolled his eyes and sat down on the porch steps. She sat down next to him, watching as the sun lowered on the horizon and gave the world an orange glow for a few minutes. She never got over just how beautiful sunsets were out in this little middle of nowhere. She loved watching the sun move down through the spaces between skyscrapers, but watching it slowly going down over the fields... it made her feel connected to the world, because this was how it was for millennia, the only way to view a sunset. Odd as it was to have such a thought, she liked it._

"_I am actually leaving this time, Lois. I've rented out most of the land, so I wouldn't have much to do around here except fix tractors and toss around bales of hay. Much as I like both of those tasks, I need to go out into the world, find a place for myself. I love the farm, but it's not what I am, not where I can make a difference."_

"_Well what do you know?" Lois shook her head and punched Clark' shoulder. "Looks like you finally grew up and figured yourself out, Smallville."_

"_Grew up, did I? I wish somebody would have told me sooner."_

"_We all gotta hear it sometime. Some of us grow up later than others, and you grew up even more slowly than those people. It happened, though, and now you can become a real man."_

_Clark looked over at her. "Have I been a fake man up until now?"_

_Lois smiled. "You know that's not what I meant. I know you're a man, and what kind of man you'll be. Hell, anybody that spends three seconds with you knows what kind of man you'll be once you find your place in the world. I do have to say you've got too much of the farm in you to ever be anything but a farm boy to me, though."_

"_Gotcha. Maybe someday I can surprise you, though. Be a city man, even."_

_Lois stood up, dusting herself off as she watched Clark get up and do the same. "Yeah, right. That seems as likely to happen as me quitting the Planet and settling down for a quiet, suburban housewife life. In other words, it won't."_

"_Don't ever see yourself in the house with four rooms raising the two and half kids, Lois Lane?"_

"_Heh, no. I think that'll be Chloe's thing. I like kids well enough, but that's because they always belong to somebody else and I don't have to be involved for more than a few hours, if that."_

"_Plus, it would be extremely scary for there to be even more people like you in the world. My shoulder would never stop getting hit."_

_Lois patted Clark on the shoulder a couple times before descending the steps and walking backwards towards her car. "You shouldn't complain about things you enjoy, Smallville. Remember, for all the girls that aren't me, hitting is a good thing." She pointed at him and put a stern look on her face. "Enjoy your travels, but don't do anything crazy that will get you killed. Your mom is very fond of you."_

_Clark spread his arms out and smiled. "Nothing about me you would miss?"_

_Lois stopped walking and looked at him a second before shaking her head. "Nope. Win some lose some, Smallville. Maybe I'll see you in a few years, eh?"_

"_I'll be sure to try and find you. I know where the Daily Planet is, so it shouldn't be too hard."_

_Lois opened her car door and smiled at him one last time. "Well then, I guess I'll see you when I see you, Clark Kent. Don't let things change you; somehow you've survived this crazy town with your positive outlook intact, so don't screw it up now and get cynical." Sliding into her car, Lois turned it on and pumped up the music, turning her car around and leaving the Kent farm. _

"_Oh for crying out loud," Lois mumbled as she walked to Perry's office. She assumed that this was probably going to be yet another lecture on not taking stupid risks and getting herself killed, which admittedly she'd done once. Chloe had done CPR and everything had turned out fine in the end, so she didn't think it was all that big of a deal._

_Opening the door, Lois walked inside and crossed her arms over her chest as Perry looked up at her. "Lane, thanks for being so prompt."_

"_I had a source to call, Chief. You would have bellowed more had this been more urgent."_

"_Fair enough," he said as he stood up. "Lane, I'm worried about you. You work more than I do and date less than Sullivan, which is saying something because she seems to be as much of a workaholic as you are. The competitiveness is nice because it keeps you two from getting complacent, but you're no use to me if you burn out."_

_Lois barked out a laugh and brushed some hair out of her eyes. "You're worried I'm going to burn out? I thought this was going to be another safety lecture."_

"_We've had that so often that I know by now that you're never going to stop getting in trouble. But I'm glad you brought that up, though, because since you refuse to take fewer risks I am assigning you a partner."_

_Lois's eyes went wide and she worked her jaw for a moment before she found the ability to speak. "You... what... no!"_

"_No? Have you become head honcho around here while I wasn't looking?"_

"_But I work alone!"_

"_And now you work with a partner. Look, the guy is green, but he's got a good style that will compliment yours. He's smart and quick enough to keep up with you and your hunches, plus he can at least act as a lookout for when you decide to do something insane and need one."_

"_Perry, this is bullshit. I do not need a permanent lookout! When I need backup on something I have Chloe here to come along and help me kick some ass. It's not like we took kickboxing classes two years ago to not use them."_

_Perry held up a finger, pointing at her a second later. "The decision is made, Lane. In fact, your partner is coming over now. A little late, but you've got late down to an art form so it's just something you two have in common."_

_Lois turned around as a tell guy entered the room in a nice suit. His face was blocked as he pushed glasses up onto his nose. When he lowered his hand Lois just about fell over. "Clark?"_

_Clark looked over at her and blinked a couple times before breaking out into a wide grin. "Lois! Hey, how are you?"_

"_A little shocked. When did you get back from traveling? I thought you were going to be gone forever, really, when year two passed by and there was no Clark Kent sighting."_

"_No, just needed more time. Figured three years was enough. I got back three days ago, spent the first day with mom, then had an interview with Perry yesterday. Got the job and now I'm here."_

_Lois saw Perry stand up out of the corner of her eye and looked over to him when he walked around his desk. "Well, apparently this saves me the task of introducing you two and making sure that you actually get along well enough to be coherent partners."_

"_I'm her partner? Perry, she and Chloe are tops around here. I thought you wanted to start me off slow."_

"_Changed my mind." He grabbed a file off of his desk and handed it to her. Lois flipped it open as Perry spoke again. "Here's your first assignment as a team. Enjoy. Kent, your desk is the one next to Lane's."_

_Lois took off towards her desk, figuring Clark would follow. By the time she got to her desk, Clark was jogging up to her and straightening out his tie. "First rule of being my partner, Smallville: Keep up. Second rule: My name comes first on the byline. No, flip those. My name coming first is the first rule. Third rule, and this is the most concrete of them all: Until proven otherwise, I am right and you're wrong. I'm not the best around here because I make bad guesses." _

_Lois turned and faced him, raising an eyebrow as she did so. "Did you let things change you?"_

"_What?"_

"_When we were saying our goodbyes three years ago I told you not to let things in the world make you cynical. Are you still positive outlook, everybody has good in them Clark Kent?"_

_Clark stared at her a minute before speaking. "Yeah, I think so. I still believe that everybody has the capacity for good in them, given the choice."_

_Lois sighed. "Well, I figured you would still be that way, but it doesn't help us a whole lot when it comes to reporting. Believe half of what you see and none of what you hear. I believe none of either and dig until I find something I do believe, but I've always been fairly cynical about things. Hopefully your positive outlook won't die completely in this job."_

"_I don't think helping make the world a better place will kill my positive outlook, Lois."_

"_You'd be surprised at what we report on, Smallville. I've had some brutal investigations."_

_Clark sat down at his empty desk, unbuttoning his suit coat as he did so. "I wrote while I traveled, Lois, and I think I covered gruesome things that you've never gotten close to here. One of my stories even made it into the Daily Planet's international edition."_

"_Congratulations, but you're playing with the big boys on a full time basis now, Smallville."_

_Clark rolled his eyes and scrubbed at his short hair. Lois hadn't noticed until then that it was quite a bit less shaggy than it had been back in the day, taking a more conservative look with a part in it and everything. It wasn't the only thing that had changed, though. He looked bigger, if that was possible, and like he had more self confidence than he ever had when they'd been in Smallville together. _

"_So, business aside, how have you been, Lois?"_

"_Personally?"_

"_Yeah, that's what I meant by business aside."_

_Lois rolled her eyes. "I don't really have much that goes on outside of work. Perry and I were just talking about how I actually date less than Chloe does and for some reason this makes him worry. Something about getting burned out, who knows."_

"_It's good that a reporter of your stature listens to people so closely."_

"_Very funny Smallville. A reporter of my stature doesn't always have time for a roaring social life, which is something Chloe can confirm. We're busy rooting out corrupt officials and businessmen, exposing the underbelly of Metropolis. The lack of a sex life can leave one wanting, but that's why there are bars and one night stands."_

_He stared at her for a minute, eyes wide. Lois was about to say something to stop the discomfort of the moment but he started before she could. "Nice to know that you've kept your heart walled away while I was gone. Seriously, you haven't had one serious relationship in the past three years?"_

"_I had one that lasted about four months and a couple others that didn't quite make it that far. And why are we talking about me? You just traveled around the world, which has to be more interesting than my lack of a life outside this building."_

_Clark started talking about his travels and Lois exhaled. Jesus, why did he have to go and point out the fact that she'd barely connected with another human being in the past three years? Why did it bother her that he had pointed it out so quickly? Shaking it off, Lois got back to listening to him. Partner or not, it would be nice to have a friend back. Begrudgingly, she admitted to herself that she had missed him while she was gone. If nothing else, his popping up where things were happening at random times would make for easy story getting._

_Picking herself up off the ground, Lois rested her hands on her knees as she coughed some dust out of her lungs. Why the hell had the damn thing exploded so quickly? The timer had said she'd had at least twelve more seconds than she'd ended up having. Instead of being covered in dust and coughing she would have at least been another couple hundred feet away. Just mean, really, to have a faulty timer. No honor among thieves with explosives, apparently._

_Spotting numerous vehicles sporting flashing lights coming towards her, Lois cracked her neck to remove a kink she'd picked up being blown through the air and started giving herself the once over. Minor cuts on her arms, which was to be expected, but nothing that looked like it would require stitches. Bruises and cuts on the legs, nothing major. She felt a trickle of something on her lip and felt at it for a second before moving up to her nose, finding some blood there. Hopefully this wasn't going to be concussion number six hundred._

_Sighing as she wiped at the blood from her nose, she winced as she bumped it with a knuckle. Lois wished Clark had been around to help out with this, which was certainly not something she expected to feel this soon into the partnership, if ever. Taking off in the middle of lunch because he forgot a dentist appointment and then not meeting her to snoop around a couple hours later? Was he getting a whole new set of teeth? _

_Shaking her thoughts off, she walked up to an ambulance that was coming to a stop and smiled at the paramedics as they got out of the vehicle. "Afternoon Paul, Herb. How you guys doing?"_

_Paul started checking out her cuts as he guided her to sit on the back of the ambulance. "We're better when we don't see you after something like this. How are you feeling?"_

"_Battered and bruised. The usual, I guess. Is it bad that I know a fair number of paramedics by their first names and don't ever see them outside of work?"_

"_I'd say it's bad that your usual is battered and bruised, Lane," Herb said. _

_Lois was about to say something back to him when she spotted Clark jogging towards her. He got to her, out of breath and straightening out his tie. "Lois! Are you alright?"_

"_I'm fine, Smallville. This is just my usual post explosion glow. Dust, debris and blood are nothing new for me." Lois laughed a bit as his expression turned horrified. "This is part of the reason Perry made you my partner. For some reason he thinks you can keep me from getting myself killed. Obviously I can keep myself from getting killed." She frowned as both the paramedics scoffed._

"_I know we were supposed to come here and look around, but why was there an explosion?"_

"_Good question," she said as she winced. Apparently she got the painful treatment today. "I found the bomb with about thirty seconds left on it and got out as quickly as I could. I think there was a faulty timer, though, because I wouldn't be quite so rough looking if I'd had a full thirty seconds. I'm just surprised Superman didn't come when I called for him as I ran."_

_She looked over at Clark, who was staring at the warehouse before he looked back at her. "No, yeah, there was a report on that said he was in Indonesia. There was an earthquake and he was helping to find survivors and clear rubble."_

"_That would explain it." She stopped talking as a light got flashed in her eye a couple times before it moved to the other and shined in it for a few seconds. Blinking, she watched Paul pocket his light. "So, am I concussed?"_

"_No, looks like somehow you avoided it and just bloodied up your nose. I still want to take you in for a couple scans, though, just in case. No arguments, either."_

_Lois rolled her eyes and stood up, climbing into the back of the ambulance and sitting down on the gurney. She waved at Clark to get in, and he followed up and sat down on a seat. The back got closed up as Paul pulled the doors shut and Lois laid down, getting herself settled. If ambulances had more windows in the back it wouldn't really be a bad ride, she figured. Relaxing, even, with the laying down._

_The ride passed more quickly than usual because she was busy telling Clark every detail of what had happened and when. He made her go over it again as they wheeled her into the hospital, until they stopped him from going any further in and wheeled her back. An MRI and a CT scan later they released her with a clean bill of health. _

_Clark refused to leave her alone, going so far as to walk her up to her apartment and even offering to stay the night and help her with anything she might need. She had finally gotten rid of him by telling him that if she needed anything she would call. He acted like her being in the explosion was his fault! Three weeks as partners should have taught him that most of what happened to her was her own doing, and him taking credit for her minor injuries was ridiculous._

_After a good long shower, Lois walked out of her bathroom and pulled on a bathrobe. She walked out onto her balcony, crossing her arms as she got near the edge. Metropolis at night was beautiful, and never failed to make her feel lucky. How she had ended up here, with a great job and all, she would never know._

"_I'm glad to see you're doing well, Lois."_

_Jumping, she spun to find Superman hovering over her balcony. Taking a couple breaths, she calmed her heart down and raised an eyebrow at him. "You scared the hell out of me!"_

"_Sorry. Flying is pretty quiet and I forget that it can take people by surprise."_

"_Don't worry about it," she said as she walked over to him. "I heard you did some good work in Indonesia today."_

"_I wish I could have saved more people than I did, but I'm glad I could help. I am sorry I wasn't there to get you away from that explosion before it happened."_

"_I'm in one piece with no major damage internally or externally. Lots of people being helped is more important than me nearly being blown up, anyway."_

_Superman smiled, prompting her to do the same. "How about from now on you just time your need for help a little better? Better yet, how about you stop getting into the situations?"_

"_I've known you two and a half weeks, Superman. You have to save me at least six more times before you ask me to give up my crazy near death experiences, no matter how hot you are." Her eyes went wide and she clamped a hand over her mouth for a second. "I can't believe I just said that out loud." When it looked like he was fighting a grin, Lois about went and hid in her apartment._

"_Well, six saves from now I'll be sure to ask you to give up your dangerous investigations. It's too bad you're in so many and I'll be able to ask you in a week or two. Have a nice night, Lois."_

_She watched him fly off and sighed irritably, not believing she'd actually put her foot in her mouth like that. Stupid flying guy and his disarming hotness!_

"_Why, Chloe?"_

"_Why what?"_

"_Why her?"_

"_We can't help who we're attracted to, Clark. Well, that's only kind of true, but you being all hot under the collar for Lois isn't a newsflash, and it hasn't been for a good long time."_

_Scowling, Clark pulled a bottle of water out of his fridge and handed it to Chloe as he pulled another out for himself. He spun the top off and downed some of it as he sat on a barstool next to her, letting his elbows rest on the counter in front of him. "It's not THAT obvious," he mumbled._

"_It's been a year and a half since you got back, Clark, and everybody but Lois is aware of it. The way your eyes follow her around a room is vaguely reminiscent of a puppy watching his owner."_

"_That's flattering."_

"_Do you want me to sugar coat things?" Sighing, he shook his head. "I didn't think so. Look, I've been able to tell you were head over heels since about a month after you got back. The staring and the confusion are dead giveaways. Here's your big problem: Lois is oblivious and has a bad case of unrequited lust for your alter ego."_

"_That I know," he said before taking another drink of water._

"_I figured you might, since it seems to be as well kept a secret as your feelings. Question is, assuming you ever do anything, what are you going to do?"_

"_What can I do? It's too dangerous for me to be involved with her and..." He trailed off as Chloe started shaking her head furiously._

"_No. I've heard this tune before and I don't want to hear it again." _

"_But..."_

"_No."_

_Clark eyed Chloe for a minute before looking away and staring at nothing. Being with Lois would probably just put her in danger. She needed more danger in her life like most people needed more stress. Being with her, though... if it could be half as good as he thought it could be, then it would be amazing. But he was going to have to tell her everything about himself before that could happen. Probably._

"_How mad would Lois be if I asked her out and started a relationship without telling her I'm Superman?"_

"_Depends on how long you wait to tell her. If you actually manage to start something and don't tell her for a while, I would like to request now that I be out of state when you do tell her to avoid the inevitable nuclear fallout."_

_Taking a deep breath, Clark waited for Lois as she walked out onto the balcony. They'd been going over some things for a story and had decided to take a break. Lois handed him a drink and sat down in a chair next to his. This was it. There was no better time to tell her that he was Superman, considering their story had nothing to do with him for once. _

_Looking over at her, he gulped before speaking. "Lois?"_

"_Yeah, what's up Smallville?"_

_Clark worked his jaw for a second. "I, uh, have something that I need to tell you. I've wanted to tell you for a while now, but couldn't really work up the courage."_

"_Are you gay?"_

_Clark looked at her, mouth hanging open as he tried to process what she'd said. "WHAT?"_

"_It's just that numerous attractive women have asked you if you're single, or if you wanted to go out, and you never do! It just struck me as odd to see a guy having so many women throw themselves at him since we've been partners never have any dates. Aside from Lana, I've never seen you with a woman."_

_Clark held up a hand to stop her. "I'm not gay."_

"_Are you sure?"_

"_Very. There's actually a woman I'm attracted to, but I just haven't worked up to asking her out yet."_

_Lois shrugged, looking away and taking a sip of her drink. "You should get on that. Women don't just wait around for guys to ask them out. If you're not quick somebody else is going to swoop out of the sky and pick her up before you can blink."_

"_Speaking of swooping out of the sky," he said, still not believing what he 'd heard, "I wanted to talk to you about Superman."_

_She looked over at him again, smiling. "Did you now?"_

"_Yeah, I kind of have a confession when it comes to him. I know him."_

"_I know him too. Good guy."_

"_He and I are pretty close, actually."_

_She sat up and spun in her chair, now facing him. "How close it pretty close?"_

_Closing his eyes for a second, Clark reached up and pulled his glasses off and straightened out his posture, letting his slump melt away. When he looked at Lois again, her eyes were wide and her mouth was hanging open a little. To eliminate any doubt she might have, he unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it open, revealing his Superman costume._

_He watched as she stood up and downed the rest of her drink as she walked away from him, looking out at the city. She tossed her glass back over her shoulder and he sped over, catching it and keeping it from shattering. He couldn't tell if Lois noticed or not because she didn't bother to move._

_A few minutes later Clark was still standing there, holding her glass. She turned around, face devoid of anything but anger. "I threw myself at Superman, at you, for the past year and a half. Did you enjoy it?"_

"_No, I didn't."_

"_Bullshit! I bet you loved it, watching me put myself out there time after time only to get shot down! You'd probably go home and laugh about it!"_

"_Laugh about it? What's to laugh about, Lois? It killed me that you were always so infatuated with Superman while I was just kind of there, an asexual partner for you to bounce ideas off of. I wanted you to feel that way about Clark Kent, about me, not about what I can do!"_

_Lois's eyebrows knitted together as she stared at him. "I'm the woman you wanted to ask out?"_

"_Of course you are! I spend all my time with you, see the good and the bad and can't get enough of it! I thought it would be something I could get over, but seeing you everyday and how much you've grown up and found your place in the world since Smallville... I look forward to going to work more than I do to going home."_

"_Oh God," she said, "Am I your next Lana?"_

"_It took me a long time to figure out who Lana was, Lois. Like I just said, I see the real you every single day because you don't hide anything."_

_She waved a hand at him. "Just... leave, will ya? I'm too... I don't know what I am, but whatever it is it's too much to have a big discussion with you right now."_

_Clark opened his mouth to keep things going but stopped himself, her look keeping him from dragging things out. Running a hand through his hair, he let his shoulders slump and walked away._

_Lois knocked on Chloe's door, waiting impatiently for her cousin to get the door. When the door started to open she walked in, pushing past a surprised Chloe. "You know, right?"_

"_It's too early to know anything, Lois."_

_Rolling her eyes, she walked into Chloe's kitchen and got the coffee maker going. She turned around and leaned back on the counter. "You know that Clark Kent, Smallville, is Superman, right?"_

_Chloe nodded and sat down at the kitchen table. "I'm glad he told you."_

"_Is this something he's been debating?"_

"_Not debating so much as wrestling with. He thought about telling you when he first started. He tried telling you once when you were near that warehouse explosion in 2012, but couldn't do it. He put it on the back burner for over a year after that. Then a couple nights ago we were talking about how everybody but you knew he had a huge crush on you and he went so far as to ask how mad you would be if he could start a relationship with you but not let that little detail out. I asked to be out of state when the explosion happened, so it seems he decided to share."_

"_Yes, he decided to share, and then somehow I was the one that ended up feeling bad at the end of the night because he was all sad that I liked Superman and saw him as my asexual partner, with no hope of ever getting near me."_

_Lois frowned and stopped talking, annoyed at having to think about what had happened the previous night. The more she thought about things the more obvious all the signs were. His disappearances now and all his right place at the right time in Smallville... Jesus, his disguise was glasses! How was she this dumb? How were people so blind that they couldn't see past a pair of glasses? God, the man was infuriating!_

"_The problem wasn't that he was asexual, though, just that his timing was bad. I'd never seen Clark Kent as anything but a friend, and even after not seeing him for three years I didn't think of him as anything else. But suddenly he has a crush on me while at the same time becoming a super hero that is beyond amazing in what he can do for the world? How am I supposed to notice somebody that has learned to melt into the background when there's basically a god right in front of me?"_

_Chloe got up and walked over, pouring herself a glass of coffee before walking back to her chair and sitting down. Lois poured herself a glass and walked over to the table, sitting down across from her cousin. After a couple more sips Chloe looked more awake than she had five minutes before. _

"_You're saying everything Clark was afraid would happen. He wanted to be seen by you for being himself. If you're thinking about being with him now because he's Superman, do him a favor and don't. It's not fair to him. Be with Clark Kent for Clark Kent, not for Superman."_

"_That would have been a lot easier if he hadn't told me the truth."_

"_Would you have ever thought about it if he hadn't?"_

_Lois frowned and took a sip of her coffee, not saying anything. _

"_That's what I thought."_

"_Did you two sleep together?"_

_Lois looked up at Perry, then over at Clark out of the corner of her eye, who was looking at Perry like he'd grown an extra head. When he glanced at her she looked back at Perry. "No, definitely no sex, Chief. Why do you ask?"_

"_Well, you two are barely speaking and the article you turned in yesterday was horrible. Did you even read it before submitting it? I could tell who wrote what without thinking because there was no flow. Did you just split it into sections then cut and paste? No, I don't care if you did it or not because if you do it again there will be no more Lane and Kent. You two are great together, but I don't accept shoddy work. Fix the problems or go your separate ways."_

_Watching as Perry walked away, Lois sat up straight and looked at Clark. "Well?"_

"_Well what?"_

"_Do you have anything to say, or are you just going to leave things the way they are?"_

"_You say that like this is a one way street."_

_Lois rubbed a hand over her face and exhaled loudly. Yelling at him right about now would be nice, but probably wouldn't go over well with Perry since they were in the middle of the bullpen. She got up and pointed at a conference room, walking over and holding the door open for him as he walked inside. She closed it behind herself and crossed her arms over her chest._

"_What are we going to do to fix this?"_

_Clark sat down. "Going back in time and not telling you that I have powers and feelings for you seems like a really good idea right about now."_

"_Yeah, well, time travel isn't one of your abilities unless you've been holding out on me." Lois rolled her eyes, hardly believing she could have a conversation with powers involved in it. She looked back at him, calming herself down a little. "As much as I hate to say it, I've come to like being part of a team with you, and I don't want this to end because you're mad at me about being fond of Superman."_

"_I'm not mad at you, Lois. Your feelings are what they are, and a lot of women in the world feel the exact same way you do about Superman. I'm mad at myself, at the way things are, because I couldn't let myself stand out and be seen." He stood up and walked over to her, stuffing his hands in his pockets. "Clark Kent doesn't measure up to Superman, Lois, no matter who you ask. You have nothing to feel bad about. I just have to live with it."_

"_I can't get it out of my head, Chloe. It's been four days since we talked and I can't get that damn sentence out of my head!"_

_Lois downed the dregs of her beer and motioned for the bartender to bring her another. Chloe had talked her into going out and enjoying a Saturday night with a group of strangers instead of by herself in her apartment. The way Chloe was looking around the room, Lois figured she was actually trying to find a guy instead of listening to her whine. Damn it, she was whining! _

_Chloe turned and faced her again. "Don't do this, Lo. If you go to him and try to be with him because you feel guilty you're just going to hurt him and feel really stupid."_

"_But it's not guilt! I've been thinking about this a hell of a lot since he said that damn sentence and walked out of the room, and I keep coming to the conclusion that Clark Kent is pretty much the exact opposite kind of guy I usually go for, no matter how often I used to say I liked nerds in glasses. He is a nerd in glasses!"_

"_He's more of a nerd in glasses to perpetuate his nerd image, so maybe he is what you usually go for."_

"_Once I get past that stuff, though, and to what makes Clark who he is, it boils down to the fact that he's a really good guy. Amazing, in fact." A new beer was put in front of her but Lois wasn't paying attention to it. "I'm going to get out of here and talk to him, Chlo."_

"_About time. I'm going to stick around for a while."_

"_See anybody you like?"_

_Chloe hemmed and hawed for a second before pointing out a guy. Lois spun off her stool and walked over to the group of guys where the guy was ensconced. Pushing her way past a couple guys, she pulled the one Chloe had pointed out away from them and walked him over to the bar without a word said. When they got to Chloe, she smiled up at the guy. "Have you met Chloe?"_

_Lois grabbed her purse and tossed a ten on the bar before walking off, leaving Chloe with the guy. She grabbed a cab and gave him Clark's building. Ten minutes later she was headed up to his place and knocking on the door. It opened and Clark greeted her._

"_Lois? I thought you were out with Chloe. Did you find a story while drinking?"_

"_No, I just wanted to come by, Smallville." She walked past him into his apartment and dropped her purse on his coffee table before turning to face him. "You made me think about things."_

"_I'm sorry?"_

"_No, this was good. I thought about you, mostly, and what makes Clark Kent the Clark Kent I know. That whole line of Clark Kent not measuring up got stuck in my head and so I started taking mental measurements. The results were conclusively in favor of me really questioning all the conclusions I had previously come to."_

_Clark finally closed the door and walked back into his apartment, turning off the television and tossing the remote on the couch. He crossed his arms over his chest and Lois suddenly felt like she was talking to Superman instead of Clark. Probably best not to tell him that lest he think she was still seeing one instead of the other. It was hard not to see Superman in everything Clark did now. Maybe it would fade with time until everything was just Clark, and she didn't think of the two separately anymore._

"_I'm not always the fastest when it comes to what I should say to you, Lois, so I'm not sure how to respond to your statement. A cautious 'Yay' comes to mind."_

"_Let's do this differently. Kiss me."_

_Clark's eyebrows rose up his forehead at a considerable rate, almost causing Lois to laugh. She figured that might be the last thing he would expect her to say. Hell, she definitely hadn't been planning to say it until about thirty seconds before it had happened._

"_W-what?"_

"_I say we put our lips together. Talking certainly isn't getting us anywhere, and when it's good we go from there."_

"_But..."_

_Lois pointed at him as she walked towards him, stopping when her body was only a few inches from his. "It's going to be good, Smallville. Call it a hunch, intuition or whatever but it's going to be mmph..."_

_Wow, he'd really done it. She thought she was going to have to pull him down or get on her tiptoes, either way being the initiator. But no, he'd taken the initiative and wow, he was really good at it. A second later he pulled away and Lois took a few seconds to catch her breath. Clearing her throat, she smiled at him. "You're very good at that for a guy that hasn't had any female contact in a while. Thought you might be out of practice."_

"_I was thinking the same, but I wanted to bring my A game for you. Only get one first kiss."_

_Lois nodded, unable to wipe the smile from her face. "This could very possibly be the start of something good."_

"_Let's hope so."_

"_You made me a nice Italian dinner with wine more expensive than my shoes. What's the occasion?"_

_Clark smiled at her as he poured some more wine into her outstretched glass. She took a sip and nodded a little, enjoying the taste. If they could have wine like this with every Italian meal she would seriously consider finding a way to make all their meals come from there. As it was, she was content to just have it this one time, and she was always happy to have dinner as made by Clark Kent. He'd yet to make a bad meal in the thirteen months they'd been together._

"_I have my motives," he said as he sat back down, grinning. "Few of them are pure."_

_Lois smiled around a bite of bread, swallowing so she could talk. "You went to all this trouble just to get me in the sack? Bad move, Smallville. You have to save this for special occasions or else you're going to get my expectations up. Ten years from now I'm going to make you do dinners like this anytime you want to get laid."_

_His grin softened a bit and he leaned in, resting his elbows on the table. "You see us together in ten years?"_

"_I see us together in fifty, Clark."_

"_Good, I'm glad." He stood up and walked out of the room, coming back a second later. She took a sip of wine and put her glass back down, as he stood in front of her. When he kneeled a second later her breath caught, especially when she saw he was holding a little box. She gulped as he opened it. "Lois Lane, will you marry me?"_

_She looked at him for a second. Was it too soon? They'd only been together a year and a month and Jesus, who cared? She loved him more than she thought possible. "Yes."_

_His face split into a grin and he slid the ring on her finger. She barely saw it as she launched herself into his arms._

_Lois interlocked her hand with Clark's as she watched Chloe stand up. The room quieted down a moment later, giving her cousin the opportunity to speak._

"_I'm not much with the public speeching, which is probably why I write, so we'll keep this short and simple. It's rare in life that you see two people as close and as in love as Lois and Clark. They have what poets write about and everybody dreams about. Their engagement lasted all of six months before the wedding, and they only waited that long because Martha and I talked them out of running off and eloping a few months back. They just couldn't wait to be married, and not in the crazy way, but the special way that we all hope sweeps us up."_

_Chloe held up her champagne glass, smiling widely. "To a love that will last longer than time. To Lois and Clark."_

_Lois leaned into Clark a bit as she clinked her glass against his and took a sip. She pulled Chloe into a hug as she sat down next to her. "Public speeching?"_

_Chloe laughed. "Yeah, apparently that's how I say public speaking now. I just wanted to stand up and not screw up the reception with a crappy toast."_

"_You did great, Chlo. I look forward to doing the same for you someday."_

_Clark landed on the balcony, walking into their apartment. He smiled at Lois as she stood up as he walked in. He super sped into some jeans and a t-shirt, pushing his glasses up on his nose as he wrapped her in a hug. "Hey you."_

"_Hey there, Smallville. How did it go?"_

"_Four more bank robbers are now in custody. I'm glad I got there when I did, because these guys were toting some major weaponry. The damage could have been a lot worse than some superficial injuries." He walked over into the kitchen and filled up a glass of water, taking a drink before turning around to face Lois again. "So, what's new since I left twenty minutes ago?"_

"_I'm pregnant."_

_Clark's mouth fell open and water dribbled out for a moment before he realized what was happening. Grabbing a dishtowel, he wiped himself off as he stared at Lois. "Wha..." He cleared his throat, uncomfortable speaking in a squeak. "What now?"_

"_We're having a baby."_

"_And this happened while I was stopping a bank robbery?"_

"_No, that was just an opportunity for me to take a few tests and, well, pass."_

"_I... I..." Clark took a deep breath and slowed himself down. "I didn't even know if this was possible. We hadn't ever really talked about it so I hadn't ever thought to have any tests done by the Swann Institute and... we're having a baby." _

_That's when it really hit him. They we're having a baby. He felt himself smile slowly as he met Lois's gaze again. "We're having a baby. We're starting a family."_

_Lois finally smiled back at him. "We're having a baby, Smallville."_

_He covered the distance between them in a few steps and swooped her up into a deep kiss, grinning like an idiot the whole time. He didn't know that he would be able to stop that for a while. Suddenly he realized what exactly he was doing, though, and quickly put Lois back down on the ground. "Sorry, I gotta think before I act. Gotta remember that gentle is the way to go."_

"_I think swinging me around and kissing me is all right, Clark, so long as you don't toss me or something."_

"_Good, because I really want to do that again." He followed through on it, repeating his previous action._

"_Oh hell."_

_Clark put Lois down quickly and took a step back. "What? What happened?" Good lord, he felt ridiculous. He was losing his mind over the smallest things!_

"_No, nothing to do with that." She paused a second. "It's just that I've been trying to think about when this could have happened, and I've come to the conclusion that it was very likely on Valentine's Day. We're a gift card company holiday cliché."_

"_You're really annoyed by this?"_

"_Well, ya know, I just don't want to say that we're having a baby because you bought me some flowers and took me to Italy. While a good story normally, you add in Valentine's Day and it just makes it seem a little more... common. If this was going to happen for us, I kind of wanted it to be special."_

_Clark smiled and raised an eyebrow. "This is pretty special to me no matter when it happened, Lo."_

_She smiled back at him a little sheepishly. "Me too."_

_Lois winced as she shifted herself a little to get more comfortable in the hospital bed, gritting her teeth until she finally got settled. As happy as she was that Jacob was born, she couldn't wait for the soreness to let up so she could sit down without a grimace. Doing so every time she sat down holding Jacob might send the wrong message to him that she was making a face about him. _

_Shaking her head, Lois sat back and rolled her eyes at herself. That was just ridiculous, no matter how much she worried about it. She exhaled loudly and Clark looked over at her. "You want him back, don't you?"_

_She really did, but she didn't want to sound like she couldn't go twenty minutes without holding him. "It's about time for him to eat, so..."_

"_Message received," Clark said as he took the few steps over and got Jacob planted firmly in her arms. She smiled down at him a moment before he started nursing, which once again caused Lois to wince a bit as her muscles went at it again. _

"_I can't believe he's already here. Didn't you just tell me you were pregnant, like, three days ago?"_

_Lois looked up at him, smiling. "If three days ago is about thirty weeks, then sure. Of course, for one to be the other I think you would have to totally redefine how you define time."_

"_Sounds like a lot of work, so I'll stick with yours." He paused a second before looking down at Jacob. "I don't know that I could ever imagine a better way to start a month now."_

"_Well, every November 1__st__ is going to be pretty special from now on, so there's at least one month that will always start well."_

_Lois looked over at the door when there was a knock and saw Chloe walk in with Mark, both of whom were smiling. "Welcome back, you two. How'd you sleep?"_

"_Pretty good," Mark said. "Chloe zonked as soon as her head hit the pillow after being up with you for the whole thing."_

"_It was a happy kind of tired. I woke up smiling, so there's that."_

"_Well, I'm glad. I'd hoped I wouldn't go into labor in the middle of the night, but lo and behold, it happened anyway. Very much worth it, though. Also, I'm kind of glad that I didn't have him on Halloween. The costume parties would have gotten old for him, I bet."_

"_So, how are you feeling, cuz?"_

_Lois shrugged and smiled again. "Good. Sore, but happy. Well, not so much happy as overwhelmingly happy, but ya know, that's a lot more to say than just happy."_

"_None of us mind hearing it."_

_Lois smiled a little wider as she looked down at Jacob, then back up at everybody. "Then I don't mind saying that I am overwhelmingly happy."_

---

"Hey, what are you thinking about?"

Lois looked up at Clark and smiled, crossing her arms before going back to watching Chloe. "Us."

"I was thinking about the same thing. Anything specific?"

"How lucky we've been, and how everything happened that got us to this point." Lois bit her lip for a second before continuing. "How could this have all happened, Smallville? What did Chloe do to deserve two weeks like this?"

"Sometimes life just piles it on, Lois."

She looked up at him again. "But why her? She's a good person, Clark, and she doesn't deserve anything that's happened to her. Lex getting her fired is something we could have dealt with. If Mark hadn't been such a raging asshole and broken up with her four days after she lost her dream job we could've gotten her to investigate everything and found proof that Lex is full of shit.

"But no, he just had to do it right then. I don't know that I've ever seen her so... blank, I guess, as I did for a few moments that next morning. Chloe's always been an expressive person, but until she started crying she was just a blank face. I don't even think she knew she was crying until I started hugging her. We could have helped her through that, given time, because after a breakup, even one as vicious as what he did to her, time is the healer."

Lois sighed and wiped a tear from her cheek as she kept her eyes locked on Chloe. "This, though... God, talk about a coup de grâce. I know uncle Gabe had a heart attack once before, but to have one and die while Chloe is there? The odds of me getting struck by lightning and winning the lotto in four different states in one day seems more likely than all this. I'm scared that she won't survive."

"I know," Clark said as he wrapped an arm around her. Lois leaned her head on his shoulder, relishing the comfort. "All we can do is try to be there for her."

"No, I can do more. Not about this, and not about the f-cking Mark situation, but I can bring Lex down. We can prove that Chloe's article wasn't false and if nothing else, get some vindication for that part of all this."

Lois watched as Chloe knelt down and placed a rose on the casket before turning around and walking away. Her cousin glanced over at them before stopping and looking over for a moment. Lois stood up straight but felt tears forming as Chloe just stood there a moment before turning again and walking away. Lois had to fight a sob that was trying to escape.

"Chloe's gone, Clark. She looks like an empty shell, a husk of what she was."

"We'll do everything can to bring Chloe back, Lois. If anybody can do it, it's you. Nobody knows her as well and can know what she's thinking."

Lois swallowed, and hugged herself to him. "I hope you're right. God, I have to be able to help her."


	8. Section 2: The Other Side Chapter 1

---- Chapter 1: Friends and Family

Rubbing her eyes for a second, Lois scooted forward in her desk chair and turned a page over onto a pile of others she'd already read before looking at the next one she'd revealed. Getting these pages read might very well be the break that she and Clark needed to get the story finished, but that didn't make them any less dull. It seemed like not finding what she wanted might actually be making them more boring than they actually were.

Truth be told, she found it odd to be working without Jacob sitting in his carrier next to her. It had been that way daily for five months now, and had been happening a couple times a week for the three weeks before that. At first it had been difficult to try and focus on work while so engrossed in Jacob, but not having him there was proving as distracting as having him there had been. Clark would probably agree with her, but was unavailable for comment while overseas helping people.

Underlining a name, she flipped the page and started running down the next one, underlining the same company name. It had been showing up throughout the investigation and now it was becoming overwhelmingly obvious they weren't the best of people. She grabbed her phone and dialed Austin Sanders, a source she'd found handy in this type of situation.

"Sanders here."

"Austin, Lois Lane. Need some info on a company, thought you might know it."

"Lay it on me."

"Castle Garden Corp." She heard him laugh and leaned back in her chair. "Something funny?"

"No, it's just that I've had some dealings with them and you're not going to like what you hear. See, they're into some real bad stuff, including but not limited to toxic dumping in the river. It's experimental stuff, though, so that's why you haven't heard an environmental report on it. Nobody knows what to look for."

"And you're just telling me this NOW? We talked four days ago!"

"I have a strong don't ask, don't tell policy, not including the fact that I just told you without you asking. Other than this, I don't give information until somebody asks, plus I tend to drink bottled water."

There was a click and Lois scowled at her phone for a second before putting back down. Toxic dumping in the river was huge, and way bigger than what she'd had on them. Looking back down at the papers she'd been going through, she shuffled them back together, not caring about order, then shoved them into her desk. After looking up the address for Castle Garden, she grabbed her purse and headed towards the elevator.

"Lois! Where are you going?"

"Castle Garden headquarters, Jimmy."

"Want some company?"

"Nope, this shouldn't be any big deal. Tell Clark for me when he gets back, ok?" She jumped into the elevator and smiled at him as the doors closed.

Landing in an alley, Clark changed into his suit, straightening his tie as he walked out and onto the sidewalk. He slouched a little as he walked into the Daily Planet building, excusing himself as he bumped into a guy walking out of the elevator. The ride up was quiet and when he got to his floor he exited with most of the other people. Pushing his glasses up, he walked to his desk to find Lois not at hers, with no mess on top of it to indicate she'd just walked somewhere else in the office. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed her number.

"You've reached the voicemail of Lois Lane Kent. Leave me a message and I'll call you back ASAP, or at least when I have a chance."

Sighing, he stuffed his phone back into his pocket and walked to Perry's office, knocking on the door.

"Come in."

Clark opened the door and smiled, leaning on a chair as he got near Perry's desk. "I know it's unlikely, but you haven't happened to have heard where Lois took off to, have you?"

Perry shook his head. "Sorry, son, but I was looking for her a few minutes ago and couldn't find her either. No answer on her cell?"

"No, but we both know that's not always unusual in a situation like this. I'll let you know if I hear anything."

Clark walked back out to his desk and sat down, frowning as he did so. He'd never liked her running off on her own, but he'd done his best to get used to it. If he wasn't there, she wasn't going to wait for him. That seemed to be something that would never change, no matter how long they were partners. Nowadays she was more careful than she'd once been, which he sometimes thought was like saying fire was colder than it had once been.

He got up again and walked around to Lois's desk, opening up the drawer where she kept her active investigation stuff and pulled out the papers he figured he'd find. Walking around to his own desk again, he sat down and started flipping through the papers, giving each a quick glance as is went by. Most of it was pretty standard stuff, with no real big outliers in the info. She'd been underlining things on the first few pages, but nothing that screamed 'I went here!'

He got on his computer and found their site, reading the text but not getting much out of it. They were obviously involved in everything, but would Lois have rushed off somewhere because she'd found something on them? It seemed to be the most likely explanation, but where she could have gone would be the mystery. They had warehouses all over the city, not to mention their corporate headquarters.

Pulling his phone out again, he tried Lois once more and got her voicemail. "Hey Lo, it's me. Just curious where you went. I always like to know these things before you end up yelling for help. Let me know what's going on when you get this."

Sighing, he tossed the phone on the desk. He tried not to worry about her. The only thing he achieved through his worry was taking a year or two off the very, very long life in store for him. The problem was her track record for things going poorly and her needing help, despite her saying she could always rescue herself, pointed him in the direction of worry.

Getting up, he walked over and poured himself a cup of coffee. This was one of those things he hadn't really picked up until he'd spent a lot of time with Lois. She'd want coffee, ask him if he wanted any and he'd say yes because he liked saying yes to her. Now he drank almost as much of the stuff as she did, even when she wasn't around. It didn't even give him a boost, but became a habit that was difficult to kick. Not that he wanted or needed to, but he'd tried once and found himself wondering why he'd bothered as he'd picked it up again.

Clark was on his way back to his desk when he saw Jimmy making his way through the office. He changed direction and made his way over to the photographer. "Jimmy, hey. You haven't seen Lois, have you?"

"Yeah, C.K. She left earlier and said to tell you she was going to Castle Garden headquarters."

"How long ago was this?"

He looked at his watch and frowned. "Uh, Forty-five minutes, maybe? Rough guess, at best."

"That's alright, Jimmy. Will you go tell Perry where she is and that I'm headed after her?"

"Yeah, sure."

Clark nodded and put his coffee down as he walked to the elevator. It never hurt to have backup, so maybe she wouldn't be too annoyed this time. If she started something alone, she liked to finish it all by herself.

Lois half covered her face and tried to look as if she were reading a piece of paper, waiting for people to pass as she stood there. It had taken some doing to get in, but it had finally happened. Searching places was much less difficult at night, but she didn't get as many chances to snoop at night these days, and she had plans tonight. She looked back as the small group walked around a corner and she started walking again, heading towards the office they had come from.

Testing the door, she found that it was locked. She pulled out her lock picking tools and started working on the door. Dinner should be fun, hopefully. Jacob was staying with Martha for the night, and if Pete and Lana left the kids with Mrs. Ross they might have the most peaceful get together they'd had in years. Technically they'd started the things about a year and a half ago, but that could still qualify as years. The past year and a half certainly felt like it had been years.

First and foremost had been Jacob. How had she had a son? Not that she'd wanted a girl, but just having a child in general was almost some surreal experience she couldn't believe she was taking part in. Eight months in and she was still wrapping her head around parenthood, though she liked to think that she had a pretty good idea of how it worked now. It wasn't nearly as overwhelming as it had been that first month. But she loved that kid like crazy. Everything she'd thought about motherhood had been wrong, but she really loved it.

The lock on the door finally clicked and she opened it slowly, slipping inside and easing it closed quietly behind her. She pocketed her tools and headed towards the desk and filing cabinets she saw at the other end of the office. She started going through the desk drawers, rifling through papers as she tried to find anything that might indicate dumping in the river.

Hopefully Chloe would have a good time tonight. After initially just ignoring the world for a while after everything that had happened, Lois had thought Chloe would recover and be her old self again when she'd started flying around the country for interviews at various papers. She'd have been sad to lose seeing her everyday, of course, but if she'd have gotten a job someplace like Gotham, New York or even Star City it wouldn't be a stretch that she still could have seen her with a bit of frequency. With Clark, anywhere in the world wasn't out of the question, but with Jacob she'd have to plan things a little more.

After all the failed interviews, though, Chloe had withdrawn again, this time more so than she had the first time around. It had been like she'd been checking to see if the world didn't suck anymore, and to prove that it still did had slapped her in the face and kicked her for good measure.

Grumbling, Lois moved away from the desk and back to the filing cabinets, opening up a drawer and checking files. If only Chloe had something, _anything_ that she could use to feel better about herself. Something even halfway decent happening in Chloe's life would be the best news Lois had heard since she'd been told Jacob was healthy right after he was born. The apartment she was living in now... Lois shuddered thinking about it. It was a hole at best, and another thing she felt her cousin shouldn't have to endure.

The only reason she'd started pushing Chloe to date was so she might find a guy and find some comfort. It had been three months since the jackass had decided that he couldn't live with his guilty conscience anymore. Lois knew that it was probably a little early to try to push Chloe into it, but if she got lucky and found one of those rare good guys Clark made her believe still existed, well, maybe it would make her more willing to be herself again.

Shutting the last of the filing cabinet drawers, she planted her hands on her hips and looked up at the ceiling, exhaling loudly. She hated finding nothing. It was extremely annoying to go to the effort of breaking into an office and not finding anything. It just wasn't right, really. She walked back over to the desk and looked at it again. She ran through the papers on top of the desk, not finding anything. Pulling her hand back, she bumped a little carving thing and moved to catch it before it fell over, but it stopped, sitting at an angle that shouldn't be possible.

Suddenly a little drawer popped open next to her feet, and she looked down at it, finding some more papers. Grinning, she pulled them out and closed the drawer again. She sat down and started going through them, her grin widening with each piece of paper she read. Now _this_ was what she liked to find. It wasn't exactly labeled 'How We Dump In The River' but it could have been. She pushed the little drawer closed with her foot as she finished reading and propped the carving back up like it should be.

Getting up, she walked towards the door. She stopped as it started to open then rushed back behind it as it was fully open. Holding her breath, she watched as the door closed and found herself looking at Clark. "Smallville?"

He turned back around and looked at her. "Lois! I thought I saw you up here, but when I walked in and didn't see you I was worried."

"You found me, now lets get out of here."

"What did you find?"

Lois motioned him to follow her as she opened the door and looked into the hallway, making sure nobody was there. "What we need to put these idiots behind bars. Come on, we need to get to the docks."

She walked out into the hallway and heard Clark follow her. He caught up with her a second later as they headed to the elevator. "Docks? Why do we need to go there?"

"Illegal toxic dumping. I know where to find them doing it. Hand me your phone, will you?"

"Something wrong with yours?"

"Yeah, dead battery." She took his from him and smiled at him. "How did your save go earlier?"

"Good. Everything turned out alright."

"Good, I'm glad." She skimmed through his numbers until she got to the one she wanted. She waited impatiently as the phone rang, and they walked out of the elevator as there was an answer.

"Jimmy Olsen's desk."

"Jimmy, it's Lois. Grab a camera and meet Clark and I at the docks in twenty minutes. The usual place."

"You got it, Lois."

She hung up and handed the phone back to Clark as they walked out of the building. She shielded her eyes against some reflected sunlight as they walked to the car, Lois slipping into the driver's seat as they got there. After handing Clark the papers she'd found, Lois got the air conditioning turned on and got them headed towards the docks before Clark spoke.

"These are pretty damning. Where'd you find them?"

"There was a secret drawer I found as part of the guy's desk. Cliché, but true. I wish I could say I found it on purpose, but I bumped a little carving thing that opened it up. Found the papers in there, and after that I found you." She looked over at him and smiled. "We didn't really have time for a proper hello, what with the rushing out of the building. Hi."

He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. "Hello. I was wondering where you had gone until I talked to Jimmy. Was worried that you might have gotten yourself into trouble."

"Nah, too much going on this evening to get myself in trouble."

"Looking forward to dinner tonight?"

"I always look forward to these things, Smallville," Lois said as she took a left turn. "I really enjoy getting everybody together and having an evening where I don't find anybody in the room annoying. That tends to happen when we're a lot of other places. Plus, I'm hoping Chloe enjoys tonight more than she has the last couple of these."

"She hasn't enjoyed the last two?"

Lois glanced at him, curious if he actually meant that. When she saw the real confusion about it on his face, she figured he did. "She looked miserable the last couple times we all got together, Clark. She'd talk every now and again, but mostly she would just sit there looking morose. I'm hoping tonight is different."

Clark was quiet a few minutes before speaking again. "Hopefully things will turn around for her soon so that she'll be able to enjoy life more."

"That's why I'm gently nudging her to date, Smallville." She saw him frown a little and decided to elaborate on her point. "Look, she really has nothing going for her life right now. She can't do what she loves because Lex screwed her and she's so tight on money now that she lives in an awful apartment. If she could at least get out in the world again and happen upon a nice guy, maybe she'll feel a little better about things."

"Am I actually hearing you, of all people, say that a guy will cure her ails?"

"What? No, what I'm saying is that since nothing else is going right for her, maybe she could find something in her personal life that brightens things up. What I'm not saying is that her life will be good again if she finds a guy."

She frowned as she parked the car and saw him smiling. Getting out, she spotted Jimmy a little ways off and led the way over to him. "Hey. Ready to get some pictures?"

"Always am. What are we looking for?"

"There are a few warehouses that Castle Garden is using for toxic dumping into the river. We're going to get the pictures." Taking the papers from Clark, she looked through them a minute before pointing out the direction of the warehouses. "They shouldn't be too far, so let's go ahead on foot."

A little while later Lois was once again picking the lock on a door, this time to a warehouse. This one was much simpler and they were inside with ease. They made their way over to where the warehouse bordered the river and found toxic barrels sitting right next to the water. Jimmy took pictures as Lois went and looked in the water. "Jimmy, over here." She pointed out some barrels in the water and he took more pictures.

"Well, I think this has been a successful day. We start out going after them in middling violations and end up getting them for dumping toxic waste in the river."

They made their way out of the warehouse and back to their respective vehicles. An hour later they were all walking into Perry's office, Jimmy having printed out the pictures he'd taken and Lois having written the story, some of it getting done on her laptop on the drive back to the Planet.

As they filed in to Perry's office, he pulled the stub of a cigar out of his mouth and put it in an ashtray with an unfinished cigar that was already there. Looking back at him, she laid the story on his desk as Jimmy put his pictures next to it. Perry looked at each before looking up. "How did you find this?"

"Little luck here and there, Perry."

"Well, however you did it, good work. It'll be in tomorrow's morning edition, front and center."

Lois grinned at Clark and they walked out of the office, heading back to their desks. They said bye to Jimmy when he left to go home for the night and sat down.

"When do you want to leave to pick up Chloe?"

Clark shrugged. "We can go in a little while since that's when she'll probably be expecting us, or you can call her and tell her we're coming now."

"Hey guys!"

Lois turned around and spotted the aforementioned cousin walking towards them. "Chloe? I thought we were picking you up."

"You were, but my apartment sucks, so I came here instead. Was here earlier, actually, but you were not. Smoked a cigar with Perry and then I went and wet my whistle, so to speak. Better afternoon than I usually have." She smiled at her, but Lois frowned.

"How much did you have to drink?"

"I spread four shots out over about half an hour. Well, I had two pretty quickly and the other two spread out. I'm not drunk, if you're asking, just a little buzzed. Now, instead of being a big downer at the shindig tonight, I'll be happy as a clam! At least until I eat something."

"You didn't really need to do that, Chloe. You're not a big downer when we get together."

"No? Maybe it's just me then, because every time somebody asks me how my life is going I feel like pure shit. Instead of being able to enjoy the time I have with my friends I end up feeling sorry for myself all night. Instead of having three seconds of happiness I feel the eyes of everybody else on me, pitying poor Chloe and her asstastic life. I'm sick of pity being the only thing people have for me besides sadness."

Lois sighed and looked at Chloe, feeling sad that her cousin had been reduced to this and there wasn't anything she could do to fix it. Suddenly Chloe pointed at her.

"See! Right now, you've got that look of 'God, I wish I could help her feel better about things' that I've seen you have so many times through the years." She turned and looked at Clark, shaking a finger at him. "You're not saying anything, but I recognize your look, too. It's your 'I want to help by listening' look. Don't worry Clark, I've bent your ears with my problems so many times over the years that I owe them some time off."

"My ears are strong, Chloe. They don't need any time off, not from you if you need to talk about things."

"I appreciate the sentiment, but there will be no talking tonight. Well, not until we see everybody else, anyway. For now, I'll sit in silence and wait for you guys to finish up what you're doing." Chloe moved over and fell back into a chair, eyes widening in surprise as it rolled backwards a little. When it stopped, she giggled and used her legs to pull herself forward back towards Lois and Clark. Lois figured she was definitely a little beyond buzzed. "So, what were you guys working on today?"

Lois heard Clark launch into an explanation but kept her eyes on Chloe. What the hell had happened to cause her to be drunk already? Lois wouldn't have been surprised if she'd have done a lot of drinking at the get together, but being drunk before that was certainly not something she would have thought would happen.

Soon they'd gone down and were in the car, heading out to the house. She looked back at Chloe for a second then back at the road. She spoke as quietly as she could, barely moving her lips. "Clark, if you can hear me, nod slowly."

When he did, she continued. "I'm really worried about her. Showing up, having been out drinking already? I didn't even know that she liked to smoke cigars outside of the odd situation, like when she got promoted up to the bullpen or when she and I had one at our wedding. It's getting to be that I don't know what she's going to do next, and I hate that. I know that I can't control her, but I'm afraid she's losing herself in quick fixes that don't help.

"We need to try and include her in things tonight, if we can. We can't choose every topic to talk about, but let's try and at least find things that will keep her conversing with us. Last time she really didn't talk about much because it was all baby and couple centric."

Lois glanced in the rearview mirror, saw Chloe looking at her and stopped talking, instead focusing on the road. The drive passed quickly and they were soon home. Lois unlocked the door and walked inside, cracking her neck as she dropped her purse onto a small table.

"So, what can I help with?"

Clark answered her. "Well, we decided to grill cheeseburgers, so I guess you can make the salad and keep Lois away from what we're eating."

"Hey, I'm learning how to cook, Smallville. Those lessons at the community college I took while I was pregnant will pay off, especially when I get into them again and really apply myself." Lois looked over at Chloe. "I kept getting distracted by Jacob kicking or a story. Got some great thinking done during that class, but none of it really helped my cooking."

"Yeah, I've noticed that. I'm sure you'll conquer it, though. Nothing much in this world of ours whips Lois Lane Kent for long and gets away with it."

Lois shot Chloe a quick smile before walking off and heading upstairs to the bedroom. She unbuttoned her shirt slowly, thinking about how much she'd tried to do while she'd been pregnant. She'd pretty much done the exact opposite of all those people that told her she was allowed to take it easy.

Until the last month of it she'd taken on as many tasks as she ever had, if not more. Along with working they'd moved into the house, she'd taken cooking lessons and attended a lamaze class, not to mention the half dozen books she'd read about pregnancy and early childhood. Hell, she probably would have worked right up until the day she had Jacob if Clark hadn't asked her to slow down.

In hindsight it might have been advantageous to save up a little energy for when Jacob had been born, but when people told her to take it easy it always made her want to work harder. That hadn't ever been something she'd even thought about much until she'd realized the habit she'd gotten into. By that point she was used to it, though, and it was just the way things were. No point in taking the time to change it.

Lois pulled on a green t-shirt and tossed her shoes off her feet and in the general direction of the closet, slipping out of her suit pants and pulling on some shorts as she heard a knock on the door. She walked over to the mirror and made sure she didn't look ridiculous before taking a quick restroom break and heading downstairs. She heard Chloe talking to Pete and Lana at the door as she headed back through the house and out into the backyard, where she found Clark, Lucy and Jimmy all standing around.

Lucy saw her first and wrapped her up in a quick hug. Lois gave her little sister the once over before saying anything. "So, how are you feeling?"

"Pretty good."

"Really?"

Lucy grinned mischievously. "Really."

Lois frowned and rolled her eyes. "Are you kidding me? It still hasn't hit you?"

"It still hasn't hit me."

She stopped her hands as they tried to reach for Lucy's neck, tucking them safely at her side. Lucy rolled her eyes and Lois sighed. "After all the morning sickness I went through, what with barely seeing the world outside of various bathrooms for six weeks or so, that may be my reaction to all women that don't suffer morning sickness." She glanced over at the back door when she saw Chloe come through and saw Lana and Pete follow her. "Hey guys! No kids tonight?"

"Nope," Pete said. "Mom's watching 'em for us and we're flying solo for the first time in..." He looked at Lana. "What? A month?"

"Something like that. I love my boys, but I think a night away from them will keep that love alive and well."

"Is it really that bad?" Lucy asked. "What do you guys think Jimmy and I should expect?"

Lois zoned in on the conversation for a moment, letting herself get lost in remembering what Jacob had been like when he was at his tiniest. Wiggly had been an apt description of him, along with night owl. Nights had been his favorite time of day pretty much from the time he'd been born, and he'd certainly taken to being awake every time it got dark.

"I'm getting drinks. Who wants one?"

Lois snapped out of her thoughts and looked up at Chloe. She looked at everybody else for a second before looking back at her blonde cousin, who apparently wanted an excuse to do something. Not a good start. Clark spoke first. "Uh, I guess I'll take a beer unless somebody wants to open some wine."

After Chloe brought back the drinks the time passed quickly and soon they had all moved into the living room to eat cheeseburgers. She took her time eating, and the only distraction from the food and conversation was when Chloe left to go cook more burgers. Lois thought that she would come back inside while they cooked and go out to flip them, but she didn't come back until she got some cheese then brought the burgers in, finding that nobody else wanted one.

She joined them in the living room after that, and Lois kept up with the conversation while trying to keep an eye on Chloe. Early on she was caught staring and smiled at her cousin before jumping in on the conversation again. Unfortunately, the blonde never seemed to get into anything they were talking about, and even more unfortunately they seemed to stick on kids and couples again.

When she wasn't thinking about Chloe, though, the night was a lot of fun. It was always good to get everybody together and talk about life. God, she wished Chloe hadn't had to have gone through everything and could have just been a part of this like everybody else.

"Guys, this was... well, it was what it was. I'm going to call a cab and head home." Lois looked up at the standing Chloe but was beaten to saying anything by Clark.

"Are you sure, Chloe? I'm more than happy to give you a ride."

"Thanks, Clark, but I'll be fine. Bye, everybody."

Silence enveloped the room as Chloe walked out and Lois sighed, letting her head fall so her chin was resting against her chest for a second. When she looked up again she got up and headed outside after Chloe. She found her sitting on the curb and sat down next to her.

"How ya doing, Chlo?"

"I'm fine, Lois."

"You were buzzed at five thirty in the afternoon and didn't say five words tonight, at least not five that weren't involved with getting drinks or food."

"I didn't have anything to say."

Lois scoffed. "I seriously doubt that."

"I got turned down for another job this afternoon, so the drinks were just a consolation prize." Chloe paused for a second, then laughed quietly. "And of course, tomorrow was supposed to be my wedding. Can't believe I'd almost forgotten that tidbit."

Lois ran a hand through her hair. She'd forgotten that little detail, too, after telling herself that she wouldn't so she'd be able to distract Chloe. "Chloe..."

"As far as tonight... I don't even know why I came. I knew what was going to happen because I've been to these things for two years now, ever since we made it a regular occurrence, but I came anyway."

Had it been two years? Lois could have sworn it was only a year and a half, but now wasn't the time to argue it. "What are you talking about?"

Chloe looked over at Lois and smiled sadly. "This is a couples night, Lois. The fact that the couples are made of our friends and family is nice, but that doesn't change what it is. Before, when I was actually part of a couple, I could enjoy it without realizing what it was, but to be single and go to it... perspective is everything."

Lois looked away, controlling her features as best she could. She'd never bothered to think about what the night could be thought of because she'd never had to. She should have seen it, and she should have found a better way to include Chloe than just torture her with a night like this. She could only think of one thing to say, and while it was probably stupid, it went along with what she'd been saying before this.

"You could always date, Chloe. That might help."

Chloe let her head drop and chuckled. "Lois, I've loved three men in my life. The first was Clark, and yeah, he was a high school and slightly beyond crush, but I was never what he wanted. It happens, ya know? Then there was Jimmy. I loved him, he loved me. I felt I had to hold a little back in that relationship, and that part was my fault, but I saw him looking at Kara as soon as he met her. Hell, this was before I even pulled away a bit, or near the same time, and still felt like I was in it as much as I could be, and it wasn't enough.

"And then there was Mark. A man I loved like no other, really. I had never opened myself up to a guy like I did Mark because I saw what you had with Clark, what everybody around me seemed to have, and I wondered why I didn't have it. I figured that part had to be it, because I'm not good at it and my relationships didn't last. So I really opened up, and I was with him for two and a half years. It was amazing. And then that night came. He never loved me. He wanted to, but it wouldn't happen.

"I've now become unlovable to guys. How did I need that? I already had enough problems with men because I was never the hottest one in a room, or the most interesting or even the go get 'em type that could be aggressive. I never stood out because I was in the midst of excellence, always with my friends and family.

"I thought I had gotten lucky, though, because I had found somebody I thought loved me for me. In reality, I had found somebody that thought I was good for him but never loved me, and couldn't no matter how often he said he did. Then he found somebody else and didn't tell me for eight months. Love at first sight, of all things!"

Chloe rested her face in her hands for a moment, then lifted her head and wiped away a tear. Lois wanted to pull her into a hug and just wish the pain away, but unfortunately she didn't live in a world where that happened. "I appreciate the offer to get me out there, Lo, but I think I'm done with trying to find somebody that loves me. I'm tired of being the wrong girl. It hurts too much. One way or another I end up alone so I'm just cutting out the painful part to keep what little heart I have left."

"Will you at least keep coming to these get together's whenever Pete and Lana drive into Metropolis? They love seeing you. I can go get them right now and have them tell you."

"Maybe I will again someday, but now... now I'm just tired of being the person everybody feels sorry for, the person everybody wishes didn't feel so awkward. The only thing people ask me anymore is if I'm alright, Lois. It's not their fault, because I would do the same thing in the situation. To endure more nights like this, though... I don't know if I would survive another conversation centered on children with my sanity intact. I can't do it, Lois. I don't have it in me because I'm not that person anymore."

"We want you here, Chloe. Never doubt that."

"I don't, and I won't, but like I said, this is a couples night, and I have no couple to be a part of." Chloe leaned over and hugged her quickly before pulling away. "I love you, Lo."

"I love you too, Chloe."

As soon as the cab pulled up and stopped, Chloe jumped in and it took off. Lois watched until it disappeared around the corner before running her hands through her hair and holding back from screaming in frustration. Not being able to help her family was the worst thing she could imagine, and now she was living that imagined scenario.


	9. Section 2: The Other Side Chapter 2

---- Chapter 2: Other Things

"I should have done more, dammit."

Clark looked over at Lois as he messed with his tie, sighing. She'd been saying that all weekend. If it could be physically done without falling over or looking ridiculous, she probably would have been kicking herself. He doubted that it could be any worse than what she was doing to herself mentally, though.

"Lois, you can't still be blaming yourself for Chloe not having a good time on Friday."

"I very much can. She pointed out to me what I should have been able to see: it's a couples night. Almost everything we talk about is children or couple related. We spent _maybe_ ten minutes the whole night on what's actually going on in the world. Everything else was torture for Chloe. The best time for her was probably when she was out cooking the burgers nobody else wanted!"

"Of course it's a couples night, Lois. It's always been that way because we've all been coupled since they started happening. Lucy and Jimmy were just starting, but it was them, us, Pete and Lana and Chloe and Mark. Remember when she first lost everything, though? We used those nights to be there for her. Now that they've gone back to the original purpose, well, I can see why Chloe would be miserable."

Clark finally got his tie straightened out and turned to Lois, who was leaning on the sink. "I would have said something but I thought you knew. You generally pick up on this type of thing before I do. We'll get it figured out, though, and find some other way to get everybody together and show Chloe that we love her."

"It's not that, Clark," Lois said as she stood up straight. "I made things worse. I took my cousin, a second sister as far as I'm concerned, and made her hell worse. I took something that she loved and used it to remind her of exactly what she didn't have anymore, and not just once but almost every time since the jackass left her. Why couldn't I see it?"

Clark spoke softly. "You have a blind spot when it comes to helping Chloe, Lois. You always have. You do what you think needs to be done. This is such a different situation, though, that doing that can run you into spots like these."

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

"You wouldn't have believed me."

"Smallville..."

Clark smiled. "It doesn't matter. You know now. You'll be able to help her, we both will, with time. Something good will happen to her, I promise, and then we'll be able to bring Chloe back into the life she loved. Heck, maybe that something positive is our investigation into Lex."

"I hope something good happens before then, because we're a long way from press on that. I just... I need to make something good happen for her. Not being able to help her for so long, seeing her so defeated... it hurts me, Smallville, to see my vibrant cousin so disgusted with life."

"It hurts me too, Lois." Suddenly Clark's hearing honed in on a call for help, and he started pulling at his tie. "Look, I need to go, but I'll see you at the Planet, ok?"

"Yeah, ok, Smallville. Good luck."

Lois spotted Clark walking through the bullpen from the elevators, flashing him a quick smiled before looking back down at Jacob. "Good timing, Jacob. Your dad just got here so he can do the diaper change." Lois looked up again as Clark stopped next to her. "Smallville, just in time. Would you mind changing his diaper?"

Clark's smile wilted into that of a playful frown. "This is what I get for helping people, Lo?"

"You don't like the recognition, so this is just you getting to be a dad." She stood a little taller and kissed him on the cheek. "Thank you."

He eyed her for a second before letting out a slow breath. "You are so lucky you found me. Any other guy, you'd be changing way more diapers than you do."

"I like to think I'm lucky to have found you for many reasons, Smallville, diapers being just one of the reasons."

Watching him walk off with Jacob in his carrier, Lois smiled and sat down at her desk before she got back to typing up their article. She got a few sentences done, then heard her cell phone start going off. She grabbed it off the desk and flipped it open before situating it between her ear and shoulder as she typed. A quick peek at the caller I.D. had told her it was Chloe calling. "To what do I owe the early call from you, Chloe? Usually you're not up for another two hours."

"Well, I have good news. Stanton Tech called me this morning and offered me a job in a different position."

Lois stopped typing. "Really?"

"Really. I start tomorrow."

"Chloe, that's great!" Lois grinned as Clark walked back into the bullpen with Jacob. He seemed to smile cautiously as he put Jacob down gently into his carrier on her desk. "What are you going to be doing?"

"I'll be an assistant to Mr. Stanton himself. It's not a good job, really, but it'll pay the bills and keep me from total financial ruin. He's a real nice guy, Lois, and said that the job gives opportunity for advancement. It's about as good as I can hope for these days."

"If you're happy about this Chloe, then I'm happy."

"I am happy, Lo. This is the first good thing that's happened to me in what feels like an eon. It won't be writing, but it'll do for now. Hopefully it'll be a stepping stone to bigger things."

Sitting back in her chair, Lois wiggled her fingers at a giggling Jacob before focusing on the conversation again. "I hope for that too, Chlo. Say, why don't we do some celebratory dinner tonight at the house?"

"Sounds good. I need to hit the house and pull out my work clothes anyway."

"All right, we'll pick you up on the way home. Congratulations, Chloe."

"Thanks, Lois. I'll see you tonight."

Lois flipped her phone shut and got up out of her chair, pulling Clark into a hug. "What's going on, Lois?"

"Chloe got a job! She's an assistant to the owner of Stanton Tech, but she has the opportunity for advancement. Not the greatest thing in the world, but she actually sounds hopeful, Smallville. The last time she sounded hopeful was when we were trying to pull her out of her funk after she lost her job here, before _Mark_."

"Three months and there's still enough venom in your use of his name to kill six elephants."

Lois grunted and pulled away from him before lifting Jacob up out of his carrier. "You, buddy, are going to see your aunt Chloe happy again. You need to see her happy, because a happy Chloe lights up the world around her. I promise that your father and I will get Chloe the justice she deserves and she'll be the Chloe everybody deserves to know."

After checking to see if she had any messages, Lois flipped her phone shut and slipped it into a pocket as she headed into the bullpen. She tossed her notepad onto Clark's desk, which seemed to pull him away from his monitor. "Hey. How was the thingy?"

"Useless. I wrote down the least generic quotes from it on there so you can finish up the article. Did the call come in yet?" He shook his head and Lois frowned as she sat down at her own desk. She'd been trying to get a guy to call her for the better part of a week after attempting to get him to acknowledge his own existence for a few weeks, but it was like finding somebody that didn't want to be found. They'd found him, but he didn't want to cooperate. He was living a cozy life away from it all, with his cabin in the Oregon wilderness purchased under a fake name. "Maybe we should just drop in unannounced."

"I don't know that he'll be more inclined to talk that way, Lois. We let him come to us, he won't feel threatened and is less resistant."

"We're going with the path of least resistance, aren't we?"

"I know you're not used to it, but yes."

"Lois! Clark!"

Lois looked over at Perry. "What's up, Chief?"

"Which one of you is doing less at the moment?" Lois half raised her hand and shrugged. Perry walked over to her and handed her a folder. "I need this written up before you leave."

"What is it?"

"Everything's inside. Sorry that it's so last minute, but we can't help when the news happens."

Lois sighed as she made her way back to the desks, letting the folder slap down as she checked on a fussing Jacob. She checked her watch and found it to be just after 6:30, feeling like she was forgetting something, but shook it off and pulled out a little thing of baby food and a spoon. She twisted the top off and tossed it on the desk before getting a little bit and flying it around a bit for show until putting it up to Jacob's mouth and getting it swallowed.

"What did Perry give you, Lois?"

"No idea, but he wants it written before we leave. I'll get on it after Jacob gets his dinner."

Forty five minutes and a cleaned up baby later, Lois started looking through a folder and getting to writing. Checking her watch again, the feeling that she was forgetting something once again came to the forefront of her mind. What the hell was she forgetting? Shaking her head, she looked over at Clark. "Are we forgetting something?"

He leaned over and looked at her around his computer monitor. "What?"

"Are we forgetting something?"

He went quiet a minute, frowning as he slid his chair over so he didn't have to lean. "Uh... no, I don't think so. Why?"

"I feel like we are. Been feeling like it for an hour or so now." She waved a hand at him. "Nevermind, forget it. You done with that?"

"Almost. I'd have been finished sooner, but..." He trailed off and made a flying motion with his hand.

Lois nodded as she looked back at the monitor. "Yeah, I know. Perry wasn't happy when I told him you hadn't finished that while I was feeding Jacob."

"Sorry about that."

"Don't worry, Perry just blustered for a moment before I had him smiling at Jacob and heading back to his office. He took off for home about ten minutes before you got back.

Lois got back to typing a second before grabbing a pencil and shoving it between her teeth so she didn't grind them together, as she was prone to do when putting something infuriating into words. It was a stopgap to keep her teeth from being worn down while she typed that she'd implemented years ago. As such, she now found it difficult to write a story without a pencil between her teeth. A story about homeless kids was certainly something that infuriated her.

Getting out of the car, Clark took a couple steps back and opened up the back driver's side door. He unlatched the removable part of Jacob's car seat and eased his son out, doing his best not to wake him. He'd fallen asleep early on in the drive home, and waking up Jacob after he was asleep was like waking up wrath itself. Rarely was the end pretty.

He closed both the car doors quietly and followed Lois as she walked up to the house and unlocked the door. Going inside, Clark went straight to the stairs and headed up to Jacob's room, where he deposited the sleeping boy into his crib. He put the carrier down next to the crib and after watching him sleep a moment, Clark grabbed the baby monitor and headed to his and Lois's room, where he changed into some jeans and a t-shirt.

Back downstairs, he found Lois in the kitchen and snuck up behind her until he tapped her on the shoulder. As usual, he didn't seem to have surprised her.

"I'm starving, Smallville. What should we do for dinner?"

"What do we have?"

"Microwavable pizzas, various fruits and vegetables, cereal, sandwich meat and bread."

"Roast beef, or just turkey?"

"We do have roast beef."

"I'll do sandwiches then. Easy and quick." She sighed, and he frowned at her back. "Not finding anything?"

"No, I think I'm going to hit a fast food place. Keys?" He fished them out of his pocket and held them out to her as she turned and took them from him. "You want anything?"

"Large fries, chocolate shake. Mind if I sandwich while you're gone?"

"Be my guest. I'll be back soon."

He watched her walk out before grabbing the roast beef out of the fridge and stuffing a slice into his mouth. He kicked the fridge door shut and grabbed the bread before heading into the living room and setting both items down on the coffee table. He went back into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of water before placing himself on the couch and turning on a baseball game as he got to making himself a sandwich.

Two sandwiches later he'd replaced the bread and meat and was just relaxing on the couch when he heard Lois walk into the house. Standing up, he walked over and took the bag of food from her as she dropped her purse on a kitchen counter. "That didn't take too long."

"Not many people there."

The rest of the evening went by quickly. After watching some of the game, they put a movie on and Lois had cuddled up close to him. He always enjoyed that because it meant getting to hold her close. He was an unabashed romantic, so holding her was one of those things that really made the day better. Once the movie was done, they'd headed upstairs for bed. Clark was pulling off his shirt as Lois walked out of the closet and spoke.

"I still feel like I'm forgetting something. It's really annoying."

"Maybe you'll figure it out in the morning. We got pretty swamped with things tonight."

"Yeah, maybe so."

She got into bed and laid down, and he followed suit. She scooted over and turned her back to him, and he scooted a little closer and spooned her, wrapping an arm around her as he placed a kiss on her neck. "Night, Lo."

"Night, Smallville."

"Hey, have you seen my phone?"

Clark looked over at her and shook his head. "Not that I know of. You want me to take a quick look?"

"Yeah, if you don't mind." Lois waited while he aimed his eyes up at the ceiling, scratching at the back of her neck as she waited.

"It's in your purse."

"Really? Thought I had looked there." Lois bounded up the stairs and into their bedroom before grabbing her purse and dumping it out on the bed. Digging through her stuff, she finally found it and slipped it open. Two voicemails. Dialing it, she waited a second before the first one played.

"Hey Lo, it's Chloe. Just wondering where you are. I'm sure you've just got your hands full with Jacob and Clark is out, or something like that. I'm looking forward to dinner tonight, and to seeing you guys. Bye."

Oh God. They'd forgotten Chloe! Lois about screamed as she waited for the second voicemail to play. "So, Lois, how's it going? If you feel like you forgot something tonight, don't worry about it. Fits in perfect with my day, where my new job seems to think I don't exist. Have a nice night, or day if you get this when it's sunny tomorrow."

Flipping her phone shut, Lois stuffed all her stuff back into her purse before grabbing it and some sandals. Heading back down the stairs, she found Clark sitting with Jacob in the living room. "We forgot Chloe!"

"What?"

"Dinner last night with Chloe! That's what I'd forgotten and couldn't remember. There were two voicemails on my phone from her from last night."

"Why didn't your phone ring?"

"I put it on silent before the press conference last night and apparently never put it back. God, I can't believe I did this. I'm going to go treat her to breakfast, all right?"

"Yeah, ok. Do you want me to call if I have to make a save, or do you want to take Jacob with you?"

"Call. I wanna try to do some cousin bonding if I can. I'll see you later. Love you, Jacob."

She kissed her son on his head as he reached a hand for her then took off out the door. Once in the car she took off towards Chloe's apartment, cursing herself for forgetting about dinner. How could she do that to Chloe? She was getting wind of old Chloe being brought to the world again and she goes and forgets about her. Perfect.

A little while later she found a parking spot in front of the building and got out of the car. She walked up the stairs and grabbed the door as somebody walked out of the building, heading inside and up the stairs. She walked to Chloe's door and knocked. Remembering that Chloe probably wouldn't b up yet, she started pounding for a minute until the door swung open, her sleepy looking cousin revealing herself.

"What the hell are you doing here at... what time is it?"

"8:30. I am SO sorry that we forgot about dinner last night, it's just everything piled up and we didn't even eat until about 9:00, and by that point I had just been so busy... God, that's no excuse. I shouldn't forget about you, no matter what. When I got your message after waking up this morning I felt like the world's biggest ass."

Lois followed Chloe into the apartment as the blonde went and sat on the edge of her bed. "Don't worry about it, Lois. I ate at Chili's, came home and passed out. It was a well rounded night of eating and drinking."

"Well at least let me treat you to breakfast. Clark and Jacob stayed home so it'll just be you and me. We can talk about what happened at your job yesterday! I'm very ready to lend a sympathetic ear. Come on, up and at 'em! Get dressed!"

Chloe eyed her for a second before getting up and pulling a clean shirt and bra out of her laundry bag, walking over to the bathroom. A couple minutes later Chloe emerged in clean clothes. She picked a hairbrush up off a pile of junk and ran it through her hair as she talked.

"So, where do you want to go?"

"How about we..." Lois was interrupted by the sound of her phone ringing, and when she pulled it out of her pocket and looked at the number her face fell. Chloe raised an eyebrow as Lois looked back at her. "I'm going to take this, but I'll be right back."

Lois stepped out into the hallway, flipping the phone open. "Aaron Davis, nice to finally hear from you."

"I don't usually talk to anybody Lane, and certainly nobody that knows my real name, so consider yourself lucky I even called. What do you want?"

"You were working in Lex's lab when Chloe Sullivan broke the story about your work. I know that you were her main source for that story. You also disappeared off the face of the earth when Lex decided to accuse Chloe of making the story up. I want you to come forward in my article about that situation."

"I'm sorry, do you have me confused with somebody that wants to die painfully? There's a reason I disappeared off the face of the earth: to avoid the ire of Luthor. That whole fiasco has made me paranoid enough, even as an anonymous source."

"Look, I know people that can keep you safe. Plus, how secure are you, really? I found you, so it wouldn't be a big jump to think that Lex can find you. You help me take him down and I guarantee that I can hide you so deeply people will forget you even existed."

There was a short pause before the voice came back. "Do you know where I am?"

"I do."

"Come see me, today. If I like what I hear, we'll talk."

"That'll do. I'll see you soon."

Taking a deep breath, Lois smiled. This was good. Then she remembered where she was and her smile melted away. She was going to have to ditch Chloe. Sighing, she walked back inside the so-called apartment. "I'm so sorry, Chloe. That was a source I've been trying to meet with for near to a month, and if I don't take this opportunity the story may never pan out."

Chloe's face fell and Lois felt like kicking herself. "It's alright, Lo. I've been there. Maybe we can do lunch later or something."

"Actually, the source is kind of out of town, so I'm going to have to get Clark to fly me there."

"Where are you supposed to meet?"

"Oregon."

Chloe went a little slack-jawed for a second before shaking herself out of it. "Ok, well, that's that then. Good visit."

"Let's meet up tomorrow. We'll come get you early or meet somewhere and make a family day of it. Maybe Lucy and Jimmy could join us, eh? They'd make it a total family day." Crap, why had she said that? She was used to inviting other family members out of habit. Before she could say anything, though, Chloe responded.

"Sounds great, Lo. Good luck with your meeting."

Lois smiled, still wishing she hadn't said anything about Lucy and Jimmy, and walked over to Chloe, leaning over and hugging her. "I love you, Chlo. I'll call you tonight and we'll hammer out details, alright?"

"Perfect."

Clark lifted Jacob up and grinned as he giggled. There were few things in the world that sounded as good to him as his son laughing. What the hell could compare? He'd always been so afraid that he would end up alone and never have something like this. Now that he had it, it was every bit as good as he'd dreamed it would be. Of course, he'd never dreamed he'd have anything like this with Lois.

He was so glad he had her, though. She was amazing. She'd let him be the luckiest man in the world, and had given him a son.

Floating up off the floor, here he'd been laying down and playing with Jacob, Clark let Jacob down onto his chest. The boy lifted his head up and looked around curiously. Clark was always surprised at what Jacob seemed to understand. He seemed to comprehend that flying was not the norm, no matter that he'd been raised around it. Only doing it with his dad made him curious why it never happened with anybody else, Clark figured.

As they floated there, Clark heard the front door open. He let himself go back down to the ground and Jacob quickly crawled off of him and started making his way towards where the sound had come from. He was soon scooped up by Lois, who smiled and babbled at the baby for a minute before looking down at him.

"Davis called."

Clark turned over and pushed himself up to his feet. "Really? When?"

"Just as I was about to go to breakfast with Chloe. Remind me to call her and Lucy tonight to set something up. Right now, though, I told Davis we'd meet him at his cabin out in Oregon later today."

"Uh, ok. Should I call mom and see if I can take Jacob to the farm?"

"Yeah. I'm going to get some things together while you do that."

Lois smiled at Jacob again and took off upstairs, talking to him. Clark walked over to the phone and dialed the farm. It rang a couple times before it was picked up.

"Hello?"

"Hey, mom."

"Hello, Clark. How are you?"

"I'm ok. Sorry to cut the small talk short, but I wanted to see if you could take Jacob for us today."

"Of course I can. Is something wrong?"

"No, nothing like that. Lois and I finally got in touch with a reclusive source in Oregon and need to head out there today for a face to face."

"All right. When can I expect my grandson?"

"Within the hour. Thank you, mom."

"My pleasure. See you soon, honey."

Clark turned the phone off and put it down where it had been. He headed upstairs and found Lois checking the weather in Oregon online with Jacob on her lap. The little boy reached for the computer but couldn't quite get at it. Clark smiled and pulled him off of Lois's lap so she could work a little more easily. "How do things look?"

"Little more chilly than they are here, but not bad. He lives in the Siskiyou mountains, though, so I'm going to take a jacket just in case. What did Martha say?"

"She'd be happy to keep an eye on him, so I'm going to take him out there. Will you be good to go when I get back?"

"Yeah, should be." Lois got up and walked over, kissing Jacob a couple times on each cheek. "I love you, little boy. Be good for your grandma."

Lois cracked her neck as they walked up to the cabin. They could have been there sooner, with much less fuss, but they'd had to fly to the nearest city and rent a car to drive to the cabin just so it looked like they'd actually flown there in an airplane. Unfortunately, she felt like she'd left patience back in Metropolis.

She glanced back at Clark before walking up onto the porch of the cabin and knocking on the door a couple times. She heard footsteps coming to the door and when it was swung open was greeted by the sight of a rugged older man. Barrel chested, the way he stood almost reminded him a bit of her father. He waved them inside without saying anything.

Lois walked into the living room, scanning the room quickly with her eyes before looking back to Davis. He followed Clark into the room and crossed his arms over his chest. "So, what exactly do you want from me in all this?"

"We want to use you in the article and have you come forward in person to tell your part of the story. Once you're out there on screens everywhere espousing that the original story was in fact true, we can make sure that you're safe."

"You're asking me to have a target painted on my back instead of staying here in anonymity?" He paused a moment and took in a deep breath. "I'm willing to be quoted in your article, same as I was for Chloe Sullivan, but that's it."

"Seriously? You saw how much that accomplished last time. We need to get you in the public eye, saying that you saw the things Chloe wrote about!"

"And what good will that really do? There's no physical proof of that project where I used to work, I guarantee it. Unless you can get more people to come forward, the word of one scientist isn't going to do sht for your article."

Of course, he was right. Lois bit her lip for a second before speaking. "Will you give us names of other scientists on the project, ones that were as troubled by it as you were?"

"I can give you _a_ name. Thomas Hewlett. We talked a few times about how we weren't sure we were doing the right thing. I gave his name to Sullivan as well, but she didn't have any luck getting him for her article. Maybe you can get more names from him, but he's the only one I know that had any qualms about the work like I did."

Lois wrote down the name on her notepad before stuffing it back in her pocket. "That'll have to do." Lois flashed a quick, tight smile at the man. "Thank you for doing this. I know you're taking a risk, again, and we appreciate it."

"It's a shame, what happened to Sullivan. I thought there might be some light shed on the project, but once Luthor put forward his claims... well, the rest is history."

"Yeah. We'll be in touch soon, Mr. Davis."

"Good luck."

Walking back down to their rental in silence, Lois waited until she was seated in the car and Clark had started driving to say something. "How are we going to convince Hewlett to come forward for the article if Chloe couldn't?"

"I don't know, but we will."

Lois spotted Chloe getting out of a taxi and smiled as her cousin walked over. She wrapped her in a hug when she got close enough. "Again, so sorry about yesterday, Chloe."

"Again, I understand, Lo. I remember what the chase was like, and when your source is making himself scarce, you have to take advantage of the opportunities you can."

She hugged Chloe a little tighter for a second before she let go. Lois saw Clark smile at Chloe out of the corner of her eye. "So, looking forward to the zoo?"

"Yeah, though I'm still not sure how we ended up making this the place we were starting our day at. I've never been big on the zoo, and isn't Jacob a little young to remember any of this?"

"I'm not putting anything out of the realm of possibility with a half kryptonian baby," Lois said quietly as she lifted Jacob up out of his stroller. She took the few steps back over towards Chloe and deposited the eight month old into her arms. Chloe smiled down at him as he wriggled a bit and looked back at his her.

"I know, little guy. I always feel kinda sad when your mommy lets me go, too." Chloe got him settled against her body, bouncing a little and he calmed down a bit but was still looking back towards his her. Lois handed Chloe a pacifier and she offered it to Jacob, who took it like it was exactly what he was waiting for. "You always seem to know what he needs, Lo."

"When there's enough crying and fussing over time, one tries to learn as quickly as possible. Fortunately, Jacob is as easy a read as his father is."

"I don't know if I should take offense or be happy you know me so well, Lo."

"I'm saying the latter, Smallville... what's up?"

Lois frowned as Clark got his trademark far away look. He looked at them, sighing. "I need to go. I'll catch up with you guys later."

Lois watched him run off, shaking her head at her husband's departure. It was too bad he had to go, because this was going to be a good day. They spent the next couple minutes in a comfortable quiet, Chloe playing with Jacob while Lois messed with her phone. She'd put in a call to an old contact in the military, who was due to call sometime soon.

"Whose call are you waiting for?"

Lois looked up. She didn't want to tell Chloe about the investigation until they had cemented everything and were taking it public. "What? Oh, it's nothing."

"It's not nothing. You're staring at that thing like it's about to turn into a big pile of money. If it is, I'm trading you your baby for that phone so I can move out of my hole and into someplace nice, or at least less of a hole."

"Deal, but only because I love my son so much. Normally any random piles of money that come from my phone would stay mine."

"Duly noted."

After a moment of quiet, Lois spoke. "So, what happened at work on Friday?"

Chloe looked at Lois for a second before looking back to Jacob. She rubbed circles on his back as he laid his head against her. She walked over next to Lois, standing there and watching people pass them by. Lois thought she looked down, again. "Really, it just seemed like one of those things that could only happen to me these days. It probably felt like a bigger deal than it was, but when I asked if it had happened to anybody else and was told no, it was just a steam coming out of the ears moment."

"Then I ask again: what happened?"

"Well, the paycheck guy was passing out the checks. I like to actually get my check instead of having it go directly into my bank account, so when he passed me by like I wasn't even there, I went after him. He told me I wasn't on his list. So I went to accounting, and they had no record of me. Finally, I went to HR and was told that all the paperwork I filled out on my first day had disappeared, like it never existed. I couldn't get my check, and filling out the papers wouldn't do me much good because apparently Blake needed to be there to sign them."

"When will you get paid?"

"No idea. The HR guy, Trip, said that it may be the end of next week, or I may just have to wait until everybody else gets paid two weeks from then, so in twelve days."

Jacob started fussing as Chloe finished speaking and Lois reached over and took him from her, getting him settled in her arms and speaking to him quietly. He calmed down a minute and some kisses later, and when Lois looked up she noticed that Chloe was waving Lucy and Jimmy over.

"Hey guys. How's your day been so far?"

"Uneventful. Wake up, breakfast, come here and see you guys."

Lois raised an eyebrow at her sister. "Still no morning sickness?"

"Still no morning sickness."

"You are just..." Lois stopped speaking for a second and bit off some choice words. She'd _suffered_ through morning sickness and her sister didn't even seem to have it. How was that fair? "You're lucky Jacob is around, and we'll leave it at that."

"Say, where's C.K. at?"

"He had some errands to run, but he's going to join us as soon as possible. So, we ready to head in and look at animals?"

Once inside, Chloe grabbed a map and started guiding them around. They made their way through some of the smaller exhibits before heading towards the birds. As they were walking, Lois's phone rang and Chloe took the stroller from her as she fished her phone out of her pocket. She walked off a little ways from the others before answering. "Lois Lane."

"Lois, it's Steve."

"Hey Steve. Any luck?"

"Well, that depends on what you classify as luck. I found your man, or at least the last record of him."

"What do you mean? Is he dead?"

"Well, I don't know. Nobody has seen him in two months, when he went on a trip to eastern Europe, alone. His last known location is a town about fifty kilometers outside the city of Rybnik, Poland."

"Does he have any family we can get information from?"

"A daughter, but she hasn't heard from him. Apparently he likes to do this every now and again. He'll just disappear off the face of the earth for a while and be even harder to track down than the lat guy you wanted me to find. He always shows up again, though, and never where he was last seen. This must be one hell of an article if I keep having to find guys that disappear."

"Yeah, you could say that. Did you email me everything you've got so far?

"Always do."

"Good, thanks. Will you keep digging, see if you can't turn something up?"

"You know it. You've got me hooked on this now. Thanks a lot."

Lois smiled. "My pleasure, Steve. Keep me appraised."

Closing her phone, she sighed and stuffed it into her pocket. Pausing a second, she pulled it back out and dialed her dad. After a few rings he picked up. "Sam Lane."

"Hi daddy, it's Lois."

"Lo, how are you?"

"I'm good. Have a favor to ask of you, actually. You remember your old CIA contact George?"

"I do."

"Is he still in the business of discreet security?"

There was a pause before she got a response. "What have you gotten into, Lois?"

"No, nothing like that, daddy. I'm doing an article, and let's just say that if I do it right, once it's out my sources are going to need to be protected."

"What about you?"

"Clark is all the protection I need, daddy. You know that."

"He can't be there all the time, Lo."

"Be that as it may, I want you safe. Just keep it in mind to give me some peace of mind, all right?"

Lois rolled her eyes, but did understand what he was saying much better now that she had Jacob. She wanted to protect him from everything. "I'll keep it in mind. Love you."

"Love you too, Lo."

Lois closed her phone and walked back over to the others as she dropped her phone into her pocket. She needed to go over the stuff Steve had emailed to her, so once again she had to bail on Chloe. Maybe her cousin could watch Jacob; she never stayed anything but happy when she was with him. He'd inherited Clark's ability to make people happy, though it might just be a cute baby thing at this point.

"So, I need to go. Another meeting with a source."

Chloe stood up and shoved her hands in her pocket. "That's too bad, Lo. Maybe we can do something next weekend."

"Well actually, I was going to ask if you wanted to watch Jacob. I was going to give you my house key so you could go there and spend time with him."

"I'll do it!" Lois looked back at Lucy, who seemed to just realize what she'd shouted. "I mean, ya know, if you don't want to, Chloe."

"No, that's alright. The practice is a lot more relevant for you than it ever will be for me, so go ahead."

"Chloe, why don't you go with her and Jimmy?"

Chloe gave a tight smile and pulled Lois into a hug. "I just endured that torture, and I don't need more of it."

Lois pushed her away, but held onto her arms. "What do you mean?"

"Remember that talk we had at the end of the night when Lana and Pete were in town?"

"Yeah, kind of... why?"

"I basically just had it all over again, and Lucy didn't want to let things go nor did I have a cab to escape in. You leaving is my cab. I love you, and I'll talk to you later." Chloe turned around and waved at Lucy. "Love you, Luce."

Lucy waved as Chloe walked off, heading towards the exit. Lois watched her for a second before turning back to her sister. "What did you guys talk about?"

"I pushed your dating agenda."

"And it didn't go well."

Lucy shook her head. "Not at all. She's afraid that if she gets hurt again there's not going to be anything left of her heart. I get where she's coming from, because it's scary to put your heart out there, but she can't just _stop_ doing it. If she does, she'll be alone the rest of her life."

Lois sighed. "That's exactly what she's planning on. After getting hurt the way she did with Mark, being together two and a half years and three months from marriage, only to be told that he never really loved her? God, if that had been me I would have skewered him on something blunt."

"That might be part of the problem. She never got a chance to really express her anger because before the numbness of it all could wear off uncle Gabe died. It just got buried, along with the hurt from being fired."

"It's not buried, Luce," Lois said as she checked on Jacob. She looked back up at her sister. "She has nothing to bury it under. All she seems to know anymore is hurt."


	10. Section 2: The Other Side Chapter 3

---- Chapter 3: Finding A Win

"Smallville, do you think that I'll ever get the chance to actually spend some time with Chloe _without_ getting called away by something pertaining to the article we're doing on her article?"

Lois looked over at Clark, who leaned back in his chair with a sleeping Jacob laying against his chest. He pushed his glasses up on his nose a little further while his eyebrows drew together in thought. "I would assume at some point you won't be called away to meet a source or check something that has been sent to you, yes. I can't guarantee it, but, ya know, odds are in your favor."

"Are they really? It seems like I got to spend a total of an hour with Chloe this weekend after I _forgot_ her Friday night. God, I still can't believe I did that. And then I try an impromptu breakfast that gets interrupted by an unlikely call and we get interrupted in the middle of a trip to the zoo."

"Unlikely, yes, but not unheard of in our lives."

Frowning, Lois grabbed a pen off her desk and started messing with it. "Still, I feel like it's my fault for not planning around things like phone calls from sources better." She looked over at Clark again. "I don't think Chloe blames me, though, so much as she blames her luck, or lack thereof. Everything seems to go wrong around her these days."

"You have to admit that she's had some of the worst breaks since April. After the twelve days that nobody wants to think about, it just killed her outlook on life. Once she couldn't get a job in journalism after that it just took that Chloe that we knew and loved and buried her."

"Yeah, well, I'm going to find a way to dig her up, Smallville." Lois tossed her pen back on her desk and sat up, running a hand back through her hair. "So help me, if I have to dig until I'm fifty I will dig her up and get Chloe back. She deserves happiness more than anybody I know..." Trailing off, Lois sighed and stood up.

"It's not on you to make her happy, Lois. It's something she has to do herself."

"That doesn't mean I can't show her the way." Lois grabbed her bag and threw it over her shoulder. "This conversation is to be continued. Does Jacob need anything while I'm out getting lunch?"

Clark leaned over for a moment before getting back up. "All we have in the bag is enough formula for one meal, so if you want to get more of that or some strained something or other he should be set for the day."

"All right. Don't let me forget to call Chloe when I get back, ok? I want to check and see how the whole paycheck fiasco has turned out."

"Will do."

Lois walked away, jumping into the elevator before it could close. The ride down was slow, but eventually she got down and walked out of the building. She watched cars go by as she waited to cross the street. What the hell could she do to get Chloe's luck to turn around? There had to be something that could be tinkered with or changed so that it would make her think that there were positives in the world again. One good thing, even if it had been messed with, could be the key.

The problem was if Chloe found out. She was still one of the best at getting the truth Lois knew, if not the best outside of herself, and that presented a huge set of problems. Looking up, she noticed that people were crossing the street and hurried across, heading down the sidewalk at a leisurely pace. She didn't want to put something over on Chloe, but the woman couldn't catch a break! If she thought something positive might happen for Chloe on its own, she'd happily sit back and wait.

Patience, though, had never been her friend. It had rarely even been an acquaintance.

Looking up occasionally, Lois stayed deep in thought. How the hell could she going to fix up something positive to happen to Chloe? _What_ the hell was she going to fix up that could go well for Chloe? She could always take her to a bar and find hot guys to pay attention to her, but that would probably just end up annoying her. It had always annoyed her when she'd gone to a bar to drink and couldn't get ten minutes to herself without some guy interrupting.

Yeah, a guy was out of the question, for now at least. Professionally it seemed as if Chloe had something going for her, even if she was an assistant. What the hell would that lead to, though. Was Stanton going to train her to become something within the company, like a junior executive or something? That wouldn't be so bad, but it would take time. There was that patience thing again.

It wouldn't be so bad if Chloe hadn't chosen to live where she did. It gave Lois nightmares thinking about what could happen to her cousin if she walked the streets there late at night. If she was lucky, all that would happen was a mugging. Well, Chloe could kick butt, and there was also the option of Superman should she so choose, but still, that's no excuse to live somewhere awful when she could have their basement.

Of course, the inevitable independence issues had come up but Lois didn't think they were a big deal.

Lois turned into a grocery store, and after grabbing a hand basket made her way over to the baby food section. She grabbed a couple jars of plums, carrots and peas before tossing in another thing of formula as well. She made her way through the store back to its deli, and after taking a number was helped pretty quickly.

Twenty minutes later she was making her way back into the bullpen with a large bag of fried chicken, as well as all the things she'd bought for Jacob. She got to her desk and put the bags down before stuffing her purse into her desk again. She smiled at Clark as he got up and spun Jacob's carrier around, revealing to her an awake and happy looking baby. She picked him up and he squealed in delight.

"Hey there, Jacob. Did you sleep well? I got you some food, if you want some soon." Lois looked over at Clark. "I also got us some fried chicken."

"I smell it. Where'd you go?"

"The mom and pop grocery store five blocks down."

Clark nodded and Lois sat down, smiling at Jacob as she did so. With one hand she pulled his carrier over onto her desk and sat him back in there before taking a piece of chicken from Clark. She took a bite and mumbled a thanks around it as her thoughts strayed back to Chloe. What the hell could she do to get Chloe's head back into a positive place? What could she arrange that was big enough to take some of the sting out of her life?

Shaking her head, she took a large bite and looked over at Clark. "Hey, Smallville, what can I do for Chloe that will put a positive spin on her life for a while?"

He frowned. "How do you mean?"

"I mean that I want to do something for Chloe, without her knowing about it, that will make her think something has gone right for once. Sometimes all it takes is that first good thing and we'll be able to get her on the path to happiness once more."

"That sounds... _duplicitous_."

"Duplicitous? Seriously?"

"Seriously."

Lois shrugged. "Whatever. What can I do, in the hope of helping Chloe, that will make her think that maybe things have turned around, that just maybe not everything in her life is still going wrong."

Clark went silent a moment before saying anything. "Wouldn't you consider the fact that she got a job thirteen days ago something that might convince her everything is not going poorly anymore?"

"Professionally, yes. I want to give her hope beyond her job, though. I want to make her think 'Hey, my world outside of work doesn't totally suck anymore.'"

"What about your attempts to get her to start up another relationship, or at least be a part of the social world again?"

"I don't think that pawning her off on a guy would do the trick. While I think she could use the attention of a guy, if for nothing else than a shot of self esteem and some good ol' fashioned stress relief, if you catch my drift."

"Drift caught," he said as he tossed the bone from his chicken onto an extra napkin he'd placed beside the one that had held his food. He wiped off his hands on yet another napkin before standing up. "I'm going to go get a bottle of water. You want anything?"

"The same, please." She smiled at him and he walked off, leaving her alone with Jacob. "Well, baby boy, what do you think? You think I can find a way to get Chloe out of her self imposed exile from the world of social interaction? I like to think that I can, but your cousin once removed is quite the stubborn woman, much like your mother."

Jacob just flailed his arms about, but Lois took it as a 'You can do anything you set your mind to, mommy, and I love you so much that I just don't know how to express it.' She found it odd how long the sentences were that Jacob used in her mind. She also found it odd that she was thinking about thinking what her infant son was saying in her head. Maybe this was what going crazy felt like.

After wiping her hand on a napkin, Lois grabbed another piece of chicken out of the bag and devoured it quickly. She smiled at Clark when he finally got back with the water. "Why did the vending machine trip take you near to ten minutes?"

"Cat in a tree situation. Figured I'd help while I had some down time."

Lois smiled a little wider and shook her head. "Only you, Smallville. You are quite the boy scout."

"That's what I'm told."

"So, did you happen to brainstorm anything that we can do for Chloe to make her feel better about her life while you were getting water and making sure that kids everywhere don't have to fear cats in high places?"

He shook his head and took a big drink of water. "Nope."

Lois stood up and walked across the bullpen and into the restroom, washing her hands to get rid of the grease and so she could make a bottle for Jacob. Heading back to her desk, she grabbed his diaper bag and found the empty bottle and remaining formula mix before going to the break room and getting everything ready. She walked back out and set the bottle on her desk while she picked up Jacob and got him situated before giving him the bottle. Once he was going, she looked up at Clark.

"Nope?"

"Correct. If you want to do this, then you go right on ahead. _I_ am going to stay out of it because I want Chloe talking to me in six months, and she'll need me to talk to because she will be ignoring you and your attempts to make her feel better."

"Oh come on, Smallville. I'm trying to help her, here!"

"I understand that, and I think it's commendable. I think the best way to go about things is to let Chloe sort everything out on her own timetable. You may be right to try and give her a win, but I think this is one of those times where not taking action is the correct action."

Lois frowned at him and sighed. "There's no such thing as not taking action, Smallville. I can't sit around and watch Chloe have a crappy time of things. It's not who I am. Were I to do that, I would have to change my name from Lois Lane Kent to Lois Chicken Kent. I'm going to figure something out, help her and see her happy."

Flying low, Clark sped into the burning building and grabbed a woman and her baby, covering them from a large piece of falling ceiling that was headed for them. He blew a path clear of flame and got them out of the building quickly before heading back inside. He pulled a trapped elderly man out before x-raying the building once more. There were still at least a dozen people in there. The building must have one awfully useless fire alarm or something.

He had almost everybody out when he heard another call for help. Was that Chloe? Why would she be calling for his help as Superman? Gritting his teeth, he knew he couldn't go to her yet as he flew up into the building and pulled the last couple into his arms, both having passed out from the smoke. He flew them outside and got them into the hands of the paramedics before taking in a deep breath and releasing it into the building frozen. It did the trick as the flames disappeared from sight. He turned to the closest fireman.

"It's all out, sir."

"Thanks for your help, Superman."

Clark nodded before lifting off and heading towards where Chloe's yell for help had come from. He pushed his speed a little until landing, finding Chloe in an alley looking sullen. "What happened Chloe? Why were you calling me?"

"I just got mugged. He's long gone, by now. According to my mugger, I appear to be the only woman in Metropolis you aren't going to save from trouble."

Clark's shoulders drooped a little. How could something like this have happened to her the day he and Lois were talking about how she needed a win? He walked closer to her, laying a hand lightly on her shoulder. "I'm so sorry, Chloe. I was helping with a fire and rescue just east of the city when you called and I couldn't do things any faster than I did."

"It's not your fault, Clark. This is just the kind of thing that seems to happen to me."

"What did he take? Just your purse?"

"Yeah, but it actually had something useful in it for once: my paycheck."

Clark groaned. Of course. With this happening, Lois was going to be even more set on finding some way to make something positive happen for Chloe. "Lois told me everything that happened with that. I'm sorry, Chloe. You don't think there's any chance I could find him?"

"I couldn't see any distinguishing features or clothes, so no."

"Damn," he said. Not wanting to do everything in his Superman suit, Clark made a quick trip home for a change of clothes and was back standing in front of Chloe as he slid his glasses onto his nose. "I feel like I can't say it enough, Chlo, but I'm sorry. I want you to come stay with us tonight and sleep in a comfortable room instead of your apartment. Do you have your keys?"

"In my purse."

"More difficult, but not a big hindrance." He took off and flew into her building gathering up her clothes and laptop before getting back to her. He handed the laptop to her and walked her out to the street, waving down a cab. They both got in and he gave the guy the house address.

"Clark, you don't have to do this."

Clark nearly laughed at the statement, and would have if the situation hadn't been so serious. "Do you know what Lois would do to me when she heard about this if I didn't bring you back with me? My son would have to learn about me from you because I'll be in a little pieces and Lois will be in jail for involuntary manslaughter."

He saw Chloe smile and she looked over at him. "Why involuntary manslaughter? Seems like Lois would realize what she was doing while dicing you."

"She wouldn't know what she had done until the white hot rage cleared from her vision."

Chloe nodded, probably knowing what he said was entirely possible. The rest of the cab ride was quiet as he watched the scenery fly by. When they got to the house Clark paid the driver and hoisted her clothes bag up over his shoulder before walking her into the house.

When Clark walked into the living room and was followed by the sound of a pair of feet in loud shoes, Lois looked back over her shoulder and frowned when she saw Chloe with him. "What happened?"

Clark answered before Chloe could say anything. "Chloe got mugged and I couldn't get there in time to even catch the guy as he ran."

"_What_?" Lois jumped off the couch and walked over to her. She gave her a quick look, not seeing any blood or indications of injuries. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah. Fortunately my mugger wasn't too keen on stabbing, just threatening and thieving. He had ample chance to kill me but didn't."

"What did he take?"

"My purse, which normally wouldn't be a huge deal except it had my paycheck in it."

"Oh God," Lois said as she wrapped Chloe in a hug. "I'm glad Clark brought you here. What did I tell you about that place being a haven for muggers? Nevermind." Lois backed out of the hug and held Chloe at arm's length. "I'm just glad you're ok. Does this at least change your mind about living there? Will you please come stay here where it's safe?"

"Lois, please..."

Even after being mugged, Chloe was going to try and fight her on this! "Come on, Chloe. I know I'm kinda being harpy here, but if you came here the basement would be all yours. You could save money until you had enough to buy a nice apartment, or even a small house."

Chloe backed away a bit and crossed her arms over her chest. "Lois, listen to the following statement: Thirty one year old living in her cousin's basement because she got mugged while living somewhere crappy and has no money. What comes to mind?"

Lois grinned and shrugged. "A once and future journalist that's down on her luck and needs her family?"

"Close. A once and _former_ journalist no longer able to do what she loves and has had a run of bad luck that makes the worst gamblers look like they're on a hot streak. I'm almost afraid that if I come live here something bad is going to happen to Jacob!"

"Don't be ridiculous, Chlo."

"One, count 'em ONE good thing has happened to me in the last three months, Lois. That was getting a job as an assistant, which in my case is fancy talk for secretary. That's it. That's all I've got, and I can't even find a way to get paid for doing the job! Coming and living here will only mean the bad things that keep happening to me will follow me here, not to mention I'll officially be pathetic. If anything happened to you guys..."

"But it won't," Lois said. This was just proof that she needed to find a way to get Chloe something good going for her. "All of that's in your head. I know you're having a rough time; I've been in the front seat for a lot of it. But that doesn't mean that it's going to keep going. You're going to be fine and recover from all this. Let us help you achieve that by giving you a place to stay. Your old furniture is down there, anyway, all set up with the TV hooked up."

Chloe rubbed at her forehead for a minute, eyes squeezed shut. Finally, she sighed and looked back at her. "Fine, I'll come live here. One bad thing happens to any of you around me and I'm outta here faster than Clark can fly."

"Good thing nothing is going to happen. Tomorrow, after we're all off work, we'll pay your landlord for the next couple months and move all your stuff back here. Well, your bed, since that's basically all you had there besides clothes and other small things."

Clark scratched idly at his neck as he watched Lois put some lotion on her arms in front of the bathroom mirror. Her back to him, he looked at her reflection and saw that the skin between her eyebrows was scrunched up. It usually got that way when she was bothered by something. At least this time he didn't have to guess at what it was.

"How are you, Lois?"

"I'm fine, Smallville."

He looked down at the ground a second before looking back up. "No, you're not."

She turned and faced him, leaning back against the counter. "Of course I'm not. Chloe got fucking mugged tonight, Clark!" She paused a second and lowered her voice. "I'm not going to be all right if bad things keep happening to my cousin. How could I be? I'm worried about her, all the time. Every time something happens it just gets worse. I just... I wish I could protect her, like I did when we were little."

Clark couldn't decide what he should do. Should he pull her into a hug and never let go, as was his want? Or should he let her initiate anything like that? He decided on the latter, though he did take a step towards her and run his hand down her arm. "I want to protect her too, Lois. I wish I could have gotten there to help her tonight..." He sighed. "What about all those plans you were making earlier?"

"Most of what I said was just me trying to keep my mouth running so my brain wouldn't start focusing on what really could have happened tonight. What would have happened if the mugger had been easily swayed towards the side of stabbing? I could have lost her tonight, Clark. I could have lost my cousin tonight in a snap and there wouldn't have been a damn thing I could do about it. I don't know what I would do without Chloe."

He thought he heard her sniffle before she continued. "The problem is, I'm not equipped for a situation like this! I used to be, when we were younger and getting into these situations together. She'd get into one on her own every now and again, but it was rarely mortal peril and I was always almost on my way to help by the time it got to mortal peril. This time, though... I don't know how to deal with this anymore, Clark.

"Everything that's happening to her is making me more and more nervous that she will end up dying. I know it's silly, but Jesus, what else can happen to her? Hell, death may be too easy for her, the way things have gone." She paused and let her head drop so her chin was touching her chest. "The only thing I can think of is possibly losing my cousin, and it scares me to death."

This time Clark did pull her in for a hug, hoping to calm her down a bit. She was going down a road of some seriously scaring herself with some dark thoughts, and that wasn't somewhere he saw her go often. When she finally wrapped her arms around him, Clark took a deep breath and knew he would be able to help her.

"I promise you, Lois, Chloe isn't going to die. We won't let it happen. You don't know how to fail, and you've got your super powered husband at your disposal, not to mention a pretty talented sister." He paused, trying to find the right words. "Every time something happens to Chloe, you feel it. You two are so close that when you can't protect Chloe from the world, you feel that you failed her.

"You haven't though. Bad things are going to happen. For most people, they get stretched out over a lifetime. For Chloe, unfortunately, they've been condensed into the last four months. We're going to help her through this, though. We're going to do our article, and while that's happening Chloe is going to live here, where she can sleep safely. She's got a safe place to stay now, so it's one less thing you have to worry about."

"I know," she mumbled into his chest. "Thank you from keeping me from a total meltdown."

"That's what I'm here for."

"I thought you were here to be a beacon of good so that Earth wouldn't suffer the same fate as Krypton."

"Well, I guess the world is 1A, Jacob is 1B and keeping you from a total meltdown is 1C."

She laughed a bit, and some of the tension he'd felt through the evening finally went away. "I guess that's acceptable, Smallville. Let's get some sleep."


	11. Section 2: The Other Side Chapter 4

---- Chapter 4: Relative Help

"Pass him this way, Lo. No need to be greedy."

Lois looked over at Clark and raised an eyebrow, making her point silently. She looked down at Jacob, who was sitting in her arms, and went back to plastering kisses all over his cheeks. She lifted up his shirt and blew a raspberry on his stomach for a second, eliciting a giggle from the baby. "Gimme a second, Smallville. I'm playing with my child, so I think I'm allowed to be greedy."

"Fine, fine, but if I could get a little time with him in the next couple days I would be ever so grateful." Lois looked over at him again and he winked at her as he grinned. She couldn't help but smile back, but stuck her tongue out at him for a second while doing so. His eyebrows crawled up his forehead. "Sticking out your tongue at me? I could have sworn you were a mature adult recently."

"Yeah, well, you bring out my tongue using side. In no way do I monopolize Jacob time like you have so insinuated. For that insinuation, though, I plan on monopolizing Jacob's time."

"Huh." He watched her for a second, smiled, then disappeared from sight. Lois blinked then looked down at her arms, finding them to be empty of her ten month old. She rolled her eyes when she heard Jacob giggling in the other room, which was his usual reaction after speeding with his father.

"SO not cool, Smallville!"

"We all use the tools we're given, Lo," Clark said from the other room.

Lois got up off the floor and stretched out for a second before walking slowly from the living room to the den, where Clark and their son were currently playing together. She stood and watched them, hands on hips as Clark held Jacob above him while sitting on the couch. By the sound of all the laughter coming from the smaller of the two, interrupting would just be mean.

"You're completely ruining my plan, you know. I was very ready to take Jacob away with me to some very remote island where you couldn't find us for like, a week or two. It would be a total monopolization of time, and you would have begged me not to be so brilliant in my deviousness."

"I'm sure I would have." He smiled at her and turned a smiling Jacob around so he faced her. "But why? _Why_ would you have wanted to deprive a happy little boy of somebody he loves so much?"

Lois sighed, feeling that she had once again been beaten by Clark in a battle of some kind. She had no idea what kind of battle it was, though. Maybe it was his sanity fighting her insanity, or vice versa. One way or another, he always seemed to win, and if she were the sane one in the scenario, it really didn't say much about her. She was about to respond to him but was interrupted by her phone buzzing in her pocket. She dug it out, and finding that there was no number, flipped it open.

"Lois Lane."

"Whoever it is you have searching for me is very tenacious."

Lois frowned, checking to make sure that there was no number to use on finding this caller. "Who is this?"

"I assume you got my name from a former colleague of mine, Aaron Davis."

Lois's eyes went wide with surprise. A second later, though, she was snapping her fingers at Clark and had the phone situated between her ear and shoulder. "Thomas Hewlett, is it? I'm glad to hear we dragged you out of the woodwork." Lois motioned at Clark for a pencil and paper with her hands, and after he put Jacob down on the floor he jogged to get them, handing each to her a second later. "So, how's life been off the grid?"

"Peaceful. Very peaceful. I hope you can understand that's how I like things and how I intend to keep them, indefinitely."

"I can understand that. I like a peaceful life as much as the next person." Lois frowned when Clark snorted at her from his perch next to a crawling Jacob on the ground. "What I don't like is Chloe Sullivan getting royally screwed for an article that's 100 true. It sits wrong for me."

"I agree that it's unfortunate she was sacrificed in all this, but had I been a source in her article like Aaron Davis was, anonymous or not, I would have been putting myself in danger. Aaron doesn't have any family so he didn't have something like that to worry about. I have a daughter I love to worry about. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"I do," Lois said as she eyed Jacob. "I have a son that I would kill for if it meant keeping him safe. But I also want to raise my son in a world where innocent people can't get skewered by the guilty. Standing by while Chloe's life spirals ever downward and Lex sits in his office sipping his decades old scotch is not how I protect my family."

There was a short pause before he spoke. "So why now? This happened in April, and it's now the middle of September. I assume you started a month or two ago, but that's still more time to wait than I would expect."

"I was hoping my cousin would be able to get another job in journalism. Had Lex not blacklisted her, for all intents and purposes, she could have done this herself, and I'm confident she would have. Her life being what it is, though, leaves getting her some justice to me. I intend to do that for her and make the world a place I'm happy to raise my son in."

"Fair enough. Honestly, my work for Lex left a bad taste in my mouth that seems to linger worse than my attempts at making chili. I'll come forward and speak to the validity of your article and my quotes in it. I want the same thing for my girl that you do for your boy. The two stipulations I have on this are as follows: first, the police are going to want to speak to me, if not arrest me, and I want a guarantee of no prosecution."

Lois grimaced, knowing that would be hard to do. She was going to have to call in some serious favors to get that to happen, but if it netted Lex Luthor, she figured the Metropolis D.A. could go for it. "All right, I can arrange that. What else?"

"Call off your search dogs. I'll come out and talk when I'm ready; if I catch a whiff of somebody looking for me that I can connect to you the deal is off."

"You ask for a lot. You better be worth it."

"I'm going to give you justice at risk to my own well-being, so you best believe I'm worth it."

Lois wrote down his demands on the page to make sure that she took care of both ASAP. "Is there any timetable for when I might meet you?"

"It'll be before the end of the year."

"THE END OF THE YEAR?" Lois took a second to collect herself and walked out of the den to where Jacob couldn't hear her so she could express herself as she pleased. "That's bullsht and you know it! You say this is leaving a bad taste in your mouth but you're willing to let it sit there for another three and a half months?"

"I want some time with my daughter before I have a target painted on my forehead. You may be comfortable in that situation because of all the enemies you've made, but I'm not the comfortable with that sort of thing. I may do questionable work, but it's work I believe in and work I always intended to stay quiet about until it was ready for the world. I'm not in the habit of making powerful enemies, and that describes Luthor perfectly."

Gritting her teeth, Lois went on to ask another question. "Will you give me names I can use as sources? The more I have the better the article works."

"There are a lot of names I can give you, but you only get one: Marianne Stone."

"Why just the one?"

"Because she'll be the hardest nut to crack since she believed in what we were doing, and the one that will most help your article. Marianne, Aaron and I were the main scientists on the project. Everybody else was secondary and wouldn't provide you with much beyond circumstantial evidence."

"I'll take what I can get. Now, how can I convince you to come talk to me before the end of the year?"

The line went dead and Lois slammed her phone shut, fighting the urge to throw it across the room. In all likelihood Hewlett was going to wait until the end of December to get in contact again, and she didn't have a clue as to what could happen to Chloe by then. Why did the process of things always have to be so damn frustrating? Why couldn't clearing Chloe's name be easy?

Taking a moment to calm herself down, Lois latched onto the fact that the man was actually going to come forward and be in the article. Even if he didn't do it sooner rather than later, he was still saying he would. It was too bad she couldn't get some kind of written-in-stone lock on that fact, but just getting the man to say it would have to be enough. It was certainly better than hearing him say no and hang up on her.

Lois walked back into the den and sat down on the floor, watching Jacob for a moment. She knew that Clark was watching her, but didn't really feel like saying anything at the moment. She thought about retreating from the room and letting her anger simmer for a little while, which would really put an edge on everything she did the rest of the evening, but in the end decided against it. What good would it do? She'd just end up saying something stupid, and that rarely worked in her favor.

After a few minutes of watching him, Jacob crawled over to her and held out a hand. Having never seen him do that before, Lois smiled and took his hand, shaking it lightly. "Hi there. Nice to see you again, too." She let go of his hand and he started making sounds that generally went with a wet diaper, so she leaned over and picked him up. She gave his diaper a quick check and frowned. "You must have heard my phone call and decided to take a similar action."

After getting Jacob cleaned up, Lois walked back into the den and sat down. When she tried to put Jacob down on the floor he voiced his displeasure, so Lois got him settled sitting against her body as she looked up at Clark. "So, did you listen to the conversation?"

"Not this time. What's the verdict?"

"Willing to talk, wants protection and a deal to not be prosecuted for what he did. He gave me the name Marianne Stone, which was another scientist that knew quite a bit. Here's the kicker: he says that he'll talk before the end of the year, but didn't give a specific date. Until then, we're just flapping in the wind. Oh, and if we keep trying to find him he isn't going to help us."

Clark didn't say anything so Lois looked back down at Jacob, who seemed to be inspecting his hands. She checked to see if he had anything on them, finding nothing but fingers. Funny thing was she'd seen people twenty years older than him sitting in that exact position, baked out of their minds.

Somehow, when finishing school at Met U, she'd found every smokers hideout by pure chance. She'd thought about doing an article on the prevalence of pot smoking at the school, even going so far as trying it a few times to see if she could understand the appeal. She'd found that she preferred drinking. She'd also observed the smokers, and trying to get a decent interview out of any of them would have taken a week. A long, boring week. Combined with the fact that a million similar articles had been done, she'd decided against it. She wouldn't have made a name for herself doing what everyone else did.

Clark pulled the laptop over in front of himself, running through some of the information Lois had found on Marianne Stone. Slipping his glasses on, he looked up as he heard Lois coming down the stairs, pulling her hair up into a ponytail. When she spotted him, she smiled. "Welcome back. How did everything go?"

"Fine, really. Originally I went out to stop a mugging, but after that there was a bank robbery, another mugging, a car jacking and a fire. Thus, it took a while. When did Jacob go down?"

"Not long after you left. He was already getting tired when you were here, and once you were out and not getting him all riled up, he went down without a fuss."

Clark rolled his eyes. "I do not get Jacob all riled up."

"Yeah, because constantly flying him around the room doesn't qualify."

"Making my son laugh shouldn't count as getting him all riled up."

Lois sat down on the couch next to him and pulled the laptop back over where it had been, looking over at him with a slight turn of her head. "You just keep telling yourself that. Now, did you get to read all of the stuff that I found on this site." He nodded, and she continued. "Good. Unfortunately, this is the only site that has her listed, and it's years old. I can't find anything recent. Why did these scientists have to scatter and disappear after their work for Lex?"

Clark smiled at her and sat back, letting his head rest against the couch cushion. "Because if they didn't something in our lives wouldn't be difficult." He chuckled for a second and looked over at her. "Have you ever noticed how many things in our lives are the very definition of 'Nothing worth having is easy,' or something similar? Sometimes situations make me wish the saying had been 'Everything worth having should be easy.' I think our lives would be much simpler if that were the case."

"Unfortunately, I think Chloe's life is determined to be difficult, no matter what we, or more importantly she, wants." Lois sat back for a second before lying down and placing her head in his lap, looking up at him. He started running his fingers softly through her hair. "Do you think this will actually accomplish anything?"

"What? The investigation?"

"Yeah. I mean, we do it, we get Chloe her justice... then what? She goes back to work at the Planet? Will that really turn her life around?"

Would it turn her life around? Clark frowned in thought, but came to one conclusion. "It can't hurt, can it?"

Lois shrugged. "I don't know. Here's what I hope happens: We finish the article and take it to Chloe. She reads it, likes it and we take it to Perry. He gives it his stamp of approval and prints it. Lex looks like the bastard that he is and Chloe gets her job back. She meets somebody great, gets married and has somewhere from three to five awesome kids, because Chloe's kids can be nothing but awesome. Sometime in there she moves in close to us and we can spend tons of time together."

Clark idly scratched at his scalp for a second. "And what's the scenario you're scared of?"

"We finish the article and take it to Chloe. She reads it, likes it and we take it to Perry. He gives it his stamp of approval and prints it. Lex looks like the bastard that he is and Chloe gets her job back."

"I think I've heard something like that recently."

"This is where it differs. Instead of meeting somebody great, Chloe is still so in her head that she can't get back to her life as it was, or at least a reasonable facsimile. Instead of meeting a guy, she's scared of getting hurt and never takes a chance, instead opting to be safe and have no happiness in her personal life. She starts spending less time with us because I always bug her to try and find some happiness in her personal life, and eventually she just gives up on life, dying alone at the ripe old age of fifty."

Clark opened his mouth to say something before finding that he had nothing to say, and promptly closed it. He sat there, not finding much in the way of words for a few minutes before he finally leaned over and placed a soft kiss on her forehead. "Your worries are very specific."

"Once my mind gets rolling, it's hard to stop. Impossible, even. In fact, I'm going to call my mind avalanche prone, especially when it comes to worrying about the people I love."

Clark was about to say something when he heard the front door opening. Lois got up off the couch and walked over, Clark standing up and following. Chloe eased the door shut and turned around, smiling at them. He thought he smelled something, but dismissed it after a second. "Evening, family members. Wasn't expecting you guys to be awake."

"Evening, cousin," Lois responded. "How was the night out with the coworkers?"

She made the OK sign with her hand before walking into the kitchen. Lois followed, as did he, and found Chloe opening up the fridge. She closed it again with orange juice in hand. She put that on the counter and walked over to the pantry, pulling out a bag of Bugles. She took off the clip holding it closed and reached in, pulling out and chomping down on a handful. She smiled at them as she pulled one out and put it on her finger, pointing at each and cackling. Clark glanced at Lois, who looked as confused as he felt.

"Have you been drinking, Chlo?"

She shook her head and grabbed the orange juice, walking out into the living room with her food items in hand. They followed, again. "Nope. Well, I had a rum and coke, but I went and got some pizza with somebody before we joined everybody else at the bar. I just had a good time."

Clark frowned as he caught another whiff of what he'd smelled earlier as he walked through the spot Chloe had been standing in front of the pantry and this time he could identify it: marijuana. Had Chloe brought that smell in?

"So, cuz, if you had one whole rum and coke why are you so smiley? Not that I have a problem with you happy, far from it, but it leads me to wonder towards the why of the situation."

Chloe smiled at Lois, her eyes only half open. "Let's just say that I enjoyed the company. And on that note, I'm going to head to my basement. I bid you guys a fond farewell for the night." She walked off, the door to the basement closing behind her. Clark looked over at Lois.

"She smelled like marijuana smoke."

She spun on her heel and faced him. "What?"

"Chloe smelled like marijuana smoke. I didn't smell it right away, but when I walked through the spot she'd been standing in the kitchen, in front of the pantry, I smelled it."

"So what are you saying? Do you think she smoked pot tonight?"

Clark shrugged. "I don't know. It would explain the random smiling that didn't seem to be her natural smile. I mean, we haven't been awake when she's gotten home from these nights with the coworkers before, so we don't know if she's been like this before. Maybe she is drunk and just didn't want to tell us. All I know is that she smelled like marijuana."

"I bet some of the people she went out with tonight were the ones getting stoned and Chloe was just around them. When I went back to school, while you were doing your training, I seemed to have a knack for finding stoned people. I know the smell well, and didn't catch half a whiff. I would come home from five minutes around those people and smell just like them for hours. If I can't smell it... it's just incidental, Smallville. Chloe wouldn't smoke pot."

Running a hand through her still drying hair, Lois walked down the stairs and attempted to stifle a yawn as she walked towards the kitchen. Jacob had decided to make a long night of it, and Clark hadn't been around to help, so she was working on four hours sleep. Could be worse, she figured. Lois spotted Chloe as she walked into the kitchen, and the blonde smiled at her.  
What Clark had said the other night still weighed on her mind. Chloe wouldn't smoke pot. Yeah, she herself had done it some, but that was research for a potential article! It was never meant to be anything but that, and it never was. And hell, if she was smoking it, there were a dozen worse things she could be on. Some people swore it did a world of good for the body, and while Lois didn't buy that, she knew that things could be worse.

She smiled back at Chloe, resolving to find out just what exactly went on at one of these nights out. "So, it's Tuesday night. That usually means you're out with the coworkers drinking. Mind if I join you tonight?"

Chloe walked to the table, her back to her. She looked over a second later. "Actually it got called off tonight. Everybody else has things going on."

"Really? That's too bad." Lois walked over and sat down at the table with her, pulling off a little piece of the bagel for herself. If these nights were so much fun, maybe she could join in on it, or at least be a replacement. "Why don't we make a night of it for ourselves? We can go out to a bar and see if we can't find you somebody to bring home."

"What? No. What? No."

Lois rubbed at the corner of an eye for a second as she spoke. "Why not? You've been going out with them for what, about six weeks now? Not once have I seen a guy sneaking out of the basement or heard you coming home in the wee hours of the night after a one night stand."

"I thought you were just happy I was going out with people!"

"I am. Now I want to be happy that you're back in the game."

Chloe groaned. "Oh, come on..."

Since she couldn't get Chloe to take her on the night out with coworkers, maybe now she could push her get Chloe a guy or some sex plan. "It's been five months, Chloe. It's time to get back out there. I know I tried to get you started dating back in July and I figured that would go over poorly, which it did. But it's been five months. It's time to move on and find yourself somebody to love, or at least use for a night."

"I can't believe what I'm hearing," Chloe said. "You've never said anything like this to me before. Espousing me having a one night stand? Are you kidding me?"

"If it gets you back out there, then I'm all for it!"

"Jesus, we're having a conversation better suited for college students."

Lois rolled her eyes and got up, walking over to the coffee maker and pouring two cups. She brought them over and handed one to Chloe. "No, we're not. We're having a conversation that relates to my baby cousin being afraid to get back into the world of sex and dating. I understand you've been hurt, but I will not allow you to end up alone because of it."

"You won't allow it?"

Lois shook her head. "I won't. In fact, if you haven't had some form of a significant relationship within the year I'm going to take it as a personal affront. You know how well I react to personal affronts."

"You can't write an article and take me down, Lois. I've already been taken down so far that my feet can feel the slightest touch of Dante's Inferno."

"What I can do is start setting you up on blind dates and making sure you show up."

Chloe's eyes widened. "You wouldn't."

Lois's eyes narrowed. "I would, and the only way to get out of them would be for you to get into a real relationship."

Lois knew Chloe hated blind dates. The last had apparently been the worst and the one that had caused her to completely swear off of blind dates.

"Fine," she said through clenched teeth.

Lois smiled a self satisfied smile and took a sip of her coffee. If she were honest with herself, she would call it a victory sip, but it would be presumptuous to call getting her cousin to agree to do something within a year victorious. "All right. Now, we're still going to go out tonight. I'll call Lucy and we'll hit a bar."

"She's five months pregnant, Lo."

"Bars have non-alcoholic drinks."

"What about Jacob? If Clark has to run off to save somebody..."

"...then Jimmy will be here to watch my son. There's a baseball game on tonight, I'm sure, so they can watch that together."

Chloe let her head drop. Lois wished that Chloe didn't see this as a chore. Lois thought that it was an opportunity, but lately they hadn't always shared similar views on things. "All right, we'll go out. We're going to be just about the worst trio in bar history, though."

"Why do you say that?"  
"You're married, Lucy is married and pregnant and I'm emotionally crippled and not looking to do anything but drink and fend off my cousins and their need to fix my life."

"And hook up."

"I plan on being too busy with the last part to do that."

"We'll see."

Making her way through a small group of people, Lois got to Chloe and handed her the beer she'd gotten for her. "So, who do we like around here, Chlo?"

"Alcoholic beverages. They don't think to try and talk to me, they just make me happy."

"I've known guys like that," Lucy said as she drank her non-alcoholic something or other. Lois frowned at Lucy's drink; the thing looked like it had more fruit in it that liquid. "They can be fun."

Shaking her head, Lois walked back into the crowd as she took drink from her vodka cranberry. She didn't care what anybody said, the things were tasty. She looked around a minute before spotting a blond haired guy all by his lonesome at the bar. He looked like he could be somebody Chloe liked physically, if nothing else. She made her way over and stepped up next to him, smiling. "Hey there."

He looked over at her and smiled. "Hi. I'm Keith."

"I have somebody I want you to meet. It isn't me," she said as she flashed her wedding ring at him, "but it's somebody I think you could like." She pointed back at Chloe. "You see the blonde by herself over there? Her name's Chloe, and I think you two should meet."

"Please, lead the way."

Lois did exactly that, guiding him through the bar to Chloe. She tapped her cousin on the shoulder and smiled. "Have you met Keith?"

Lois backed away and gave a stunned looking Chloe a thumbs up before she walked back towards the area of the bar Lucy had said she'd be in. She found her sister sitting in a booth and sat down across from her. "Well, the first guy is in the firing line. Should I have found somebody homely to start her off with?"

Lucy shrugged. "How the hell should I know? I've never been in the business of setting people up before. In fact, I've tried to avoid it for the most part. I don't like putting my friends or family in that position."  
"What position?"

"The position of being angry with me for setting them up with somebody they didn't like."

"What about being angry with you for various other reasons? I recall that when we were younger that didn't seem to bother you, at all because I was angry with you often."

Lucy smiled. "Youthful indiscretions."

"That's one way of looking at it," Lois mumbled. She looked away from Lucy and let her eyes scan the crowd. It wasn't crowded, but it wasn't exactly empty either. People were standing and sitting all over the place, most in pairs or small groups. She watched as a couple guys walked over to them and rolled her eyes. Before they got to the table she lifted up her left hand and showed them the ring, scaring them away.

She'd found the power of the ring to be an odd thing. It was able to scare away men looking for women in a single flash, faster than Superman could think, really. Sometimes it didn't get the point across, but that just gave her a chance to vent pent up annoyances at some unsuspecting guy that couldn't take a hint.

"Do you remember what this kind of night was like?"

Lois snapped out of her thoughts and looked at her sister. "What?"

"These nights, going to the bar and seeing if you couldn't find a guy worth dating."

"I remember it," Lois said. "I don't miss it. The small talk drove me insane. I don't want to have to tell people my life story. I didn't like living parts of it, and I didn't want to relive it. It's why I'm so glad I found somebody that knew all my history before we started dating. It saved me the effort of getting to know somebody, though I did have to get to know Clark again after he got back from his world travels. He had some interesting backstory he'd never told me."

"Like what?"

Lois waved a hand at her. "Nothing worth mentioning. It seemed big at the time, but now it makes total sense."

Just then Chloe walked up to the booth and sat down next to Lucy. "Sorry guys, I struck out."

Lois frowned at her and Lucy smacked her on the arm with the back of her hand. She scowled at each of them in turn. "I told you that your machinations to get me all sexed up were not going to work tonight! Just because you two Lane women feel that I should be doing something does not mean I should actually be doing it."

"I tend to disagree with that statement," Lois said before taking a drink of her vodka cranberry. She hadn't expected the first guy to work, but Chloe sounded like she was already giving up. Of course, that was assuming she'd actually tried.

"I thought you might. Anyway, this night isn't going to lead to anything, so I'm going to go." Downing the rest of her beer, she started scooting towards the end of the seat.

"What? You've only talked to one guy!"

"And that's one more than I wanted to talk to. I'll see you at home later tonight, Lo. Luce, I'm sure I'll see you soon." Getting up, Chloe smiled at each and walked off, making her way through the people. Lois gaped at her as she disappeared into the crowd.

"Well, we tried."

Lois looked over at Lucy. "We did, but she didn't! Why the hell won't she try?"

"She's scared of putting her heart out there again, Lo. She's told both of us that, separately. Maybe we should just accept it since apparently she has."

"She doesn't have to put her heart out there at a bar, Luce! Jesus, all she has to do is smile and three guys will come to her! She won't even fracking try anymore, and I'm sick of it. I know bad things happened, and I don't know how I would have handled it, but I know that I wouldn't quit on the world!"

Lois finished the rest of her drink. "You know what, if she's not going to try, neither am I. Consider me out of this mess. She can wallow all she wants. I've tried to snap her out of her funk, but if this is how she wants to handle things, so be it. I love her, but she's on her own."

"I think that's what she wanted, Lo."

Lois just glared at her sister. "That isn't helping."

"I know, but I think you need to hear it. You can't help somebody that doesn't want to be helped. If she wants to be miserable and alone, that's what she is going to be. Not even the great Lois Lane can change that, no matter how much she wants to."

Lois tried to glare, but gave it up and just slumped backwards. "The great Lois Lane knows that, but she doesn't like it. Not helping somebody she loves causes her heart to hurt, and she hates it when her heart hurts. It's the worst pain she knows."


	12. Section 2: The Other Side Chapter 5

---- Chapter 5: Attacks

Walking into the house, Lois made her way into the kitchen and put the baby carrier down on the kitchen table. She shrugged her jacket off and tossed it on the back of one of the chairs before returning her attention to Jacob. She unwrapped him from his jacket, taking it over to the front door and hanging it up. For some reason she found herself trying to be much more organized with her son's things. As long as hers were in the house, it was all right, but she liked his stuff where she knew she could find it quickly.

Shaking her head, she made her way back to the kitchen and pulled Jacob out of his baby carrier, setting the object on the floor and out of the way before sitting at the breakfast bar and smiling at Jacob. "I'm sorry Mommy has been so tense lately, Jacob. She's waiting for good news from some people, and not being able to help somebody that doesn't want to be helped is frustrating."

Jacob waved his arms at her wildly and she returned the favor with her hands, eliciting a small laugh. Almost against her will, the small laugh brought a smile to her lips. She wasn't against smiling, per se, but everything recently had felt like it was dragging her down towards the kind of mood Chloe had been in.

Until recently, that is.

After the night Chloe had walked out of the bar on her and Lucy, it had been like Chloe had found something that made her smile again. While Lois wanted to be happy for her, Chloe still barely left the house. Almost every night she would come home right after work, be more cheery than she had been in recent weeks then retreat to bed for the night. It was starting to weird her out.

Of course, Lois couldn't seem to find it in herself to just go and talk to her cousin in a meaningful way. Her anger still simmered over her cousin barely living. Working all day then just sitting home at night was no way to live. She had been living proof of that, before Clark had come back from his training. Her social life had been the envy of about six recluses. All the others thought that she should get out more, Chloe included, since she'd been nearly as bad about not ensconcing herself in work then just heading home to sleep the day off.

She wanted to get beyond these feelings, but she'd be damned if she wasn't being unduly stubborn as was her trademark. This was one of those times she wished she'd have gotten better about it at one time or another.

When Clark walked into the room, Lois threw a small smile his way as he pulled some stuff out of the fridge. He smiled at her as he unwrapped the steaks he'd been thawing. "You want me to watch him while you change clothes?"

Lois shook her head. "I'm okay, Smallville."

"No, you're not. You're about four miles from okay, Lo. I wish you'd talk to Chloe. With her living here, it's not like you're want for opportunity."

"I know, I know. I just... I want to be less angry before I try to discuss things with her again. Otherwise I'll just start being belligerent and that's the last thing my relationship with Chloe needs."

Clark got all the meat on a plate and looked about to say something when the front door opened up. Clark smiled at her. "Look, an opportunity. I'm going to make myself scarce."

Clark walked off before Lois could get a word in edgewise and she scowled after him for a second before looked back at Jacob and seeing Chloe come into the kitchen.

"What's for dinner?"

Lois frowned, but didn't look up when she spoke. "Steak."

She watched her cousin walk over to the fridge and grab a bottle of water. Hoping to offset some of the tension Jacob might pick up on, Lois smiled at him for a second before Chloe spoke. "It's been two weeks, Lois. You can't still be mad at me for telling you that you aren't right about my stuff and then leaving."

Lois about tossed a shoe at Chloe. Did she her cousin really think her so petty? "Give me some credit, Chloe. I'm not mad that you don't think I'm right, because goodness knows we've had our disagreements in the past where we both thought we were right. I'm mad that you won't even try, though. You're withdrawn from the world, only leaving the house when you go to work." Another speech like that and she would definitely be classified as belligerent.

Chloe stood still for a moment, getting a look Lois recognized as one of internal debate. The look disappeared and Chloe walked over and put her bottle of water down on the bar before grabbing Jacob. Lois didn't have time to voice so much as a why or where as Chloe walked off towards the front door. A minute later she spotted the blonde headed out the backdoor, then walking back in a moment later sans baby. She sat down on the chair next to her and pulled her bottle of water over, taking a quick sip before getting started.

"I have never gone out with coworkers for drinks."

Lois looked over at her, eyebrow raised. "Where the hell have you been two nights a week, then?"

"I've been with Blake."

Well that was interesting. "Why?"

Taking another sip of water, she swallowed and breathed deeply. "When it started, I just needed a couple nights a week where I could be in a stress free environment and relax. We sat together and enjoyed having no stress for a few hours. A couple weeks ago, after I left the bar, I called him and went to the office, one thing led to another and... well, you wanted me to get back in the game, right?"

Lois worked her jaw a couple times before closing her mouth and looking away. Chloe and Blake? Chloe and her boss? Lois didn't know if she should be happy that Chloe was trying to live again or concerned that her cousin was picking a relatively perilous situation to live in. Plus, wasn't the guy young? Not that she had a problem with it, but it seemed the opposite of what Chloe generally went for. "Your boss? Isn't he six or seven years younger than you are?"

"Not that it should matter, but it turns out he's turning thirty a week from tomorrow."

"No way."

"Yup. Had no idea until he told me he was that old. Negligible age difference, really."

Lois turned her head away again, trying to figure out what the hell to say in the situation. Chloe was having sex with her boss, after having made up all those nights out with coworkers just to spend time away from her and in a stress free environment. While insulting, she did realize that she had made her cousin's life anything but stress free.

That fact that Chloe at least had something in her life that she was enjoying, though... well, that was what was for the best, Lois figured. When she looked up, she found Chloe had gotten up and was standing nearby instead of sitting. Lois gave Chloe a small smile. "Thank you for telling me."

"Of course I'm telling you, Lois. We're still us, and I still like talking to you. I just waited until now because I needed something that was just mine, something just I knew about in this mess I've made of my life. You know all my secrets and I live in your house, so I just needed something that was my own for a little while. And before you say anything, I know that I'm sleeping with my boss, which probably won't end well, but it's happening and that talk can wait."

Lois smiled at her. "I understand." She got up and walked around the breakfast bar, pulling Chloe into a hug. "I love you, cuz."

"Love you too, Lo."

"Has waiting for information ever killed anybody, Smallville?"

Clark looked over at Lois, who was sitting back in her chair and scratching at her head. He thought about for a second, but ended up shaking his head. "Not that I know of. Waiting for things has certainly led to the demise of people, but I don't know that waiting to hear from a couple scientists has ever really caused somebody to die."

"Well, if it kills me, make sure Jacob knows I love him. Seriously, waiting to hear from Hewlett is annoying the hell out of me, but not being able to get a word in with Marianne Stone is driving me up the freaking wall."

Clark had suppress a guffaw. "Yeah, I've noticed that."

"Has it been very noticeable?"

Clark looked at her over the tops of his glasses and Lois sighed. "Sorry, Smallville."

"It's all right, Lo. I know that you've got a lot invested in the story, because I feel almost the same way. Truth is, though, the only day that you've relaxed since you talked to Hewlett was Jacob's birthday ten days ago. It was great seeing you just be able to enjoy again, because t's been a rare sight of late."

Clark smiled as he heard her mutter something about not believing she had a one year old son before she straightened out her posture. "I don't think I would be so bad if I could get in to see Marianne Stone. The woman has more security around her than three presidents. Seriously, what does she need it all for?"

Clark shrugged. "Keeping you away from her?"

"Very funny, Smallville. What do you think it really is?"

"If I had to venture a guess... well, she probably knows the shelf life of scientists that at one time worked for Lex, so I bet she's trying to keep herself as protected as she can from anybody he might have come after her if he suspects something."

"Yeah," Lois grumbled, "that would be my guess as well."

Clark went back to typing up the article that they'd been researching earlier in the day, which was quite newsworthy but not so near and dear to their hearts as getting Chloe exonerated. He looked around the room for a second before letting his fingers go into super speed and typed out the rest of the article in a few seconds. He turned off his monitor as the words started scrolling across the page as quickly as the computer could put them up and leaned back in his chair.

So far all attempts they had made to get to Marianne Stone had barely been enough to call them unsuccessful. It was like trying to get through a brick wall with kryptonite chained to his chest, really, and about as much fun as getting shot with a kryptonite bullet. Hurt less, though.

"Can we have Superman drop in on her, Smallville?"

Clark let his eyes refocus and looked over at his wife. "What?"

"Superman. Can we ask him to drop in on Marianne Stone for us and ask the questions, or would that be asking too much of him?"

"Lois..."

She held up a finger and he let her speak. "Look, I know it wouldn't be the most honest use of our connections with him, but don't you tink he'd want to help an innocent person clear her name? The Superman I know wouldn't let an injustice like this go by without helping if he could."

Clark sighed and frowned a bit. "So what would you have him do, Lois? Just drop in on her with a tape recorder and ask questions about he nature of her work with Lex Luthor?"

"Of course not. All Superman would have to do is get me to her. I would have the tape recorder and ask the questions."

"Yes, because that couldn't be construed as an abuse of Superman's powers at all." Lois crossed her arms and huffed, her lower lip jutting out prominently after a second. Clark's eyes widened a bit. "Are you... are you _pouting_?"

"Yes. I wanted to try something that I never use to make you want to get Superman's help."

"I didn't even know you COULD pout!"

"Just because I don't do something doesn't mean I'm not able to do it." She looked over at him and raised an eyebrow. "So, is it working?"

Clark rolled his eyes and smiled at her. "No, but I do find it oddly sexy. That can be said for almost everything you do, though, so don't read anything into it."

"C'mon, Smallville!"

"Look, Lois, I'm not comfortable asking Superman to do something like that. What's that going to say about him? Are people going to ask if he's willing to do whatever Lois Lane asks of him because she's has information on something? As unfortunate as it is, how the public perceives Superman is extremely important, so he can't do things like that. And you have to know that there are going to be cameras all around her office to record something like that happening. We're just going to have to figure out a way to do this without anything Super involved."

"I'm going to have to do something crazy, aren't I, Smallville?"

Clark sighed. "Probably."

"Well, at least we know now." Lois stood up and walked around next to him. He watched as she looked into Jacob's carrier and nodded, seemingly satisfied that he was still sleeping.

"Nothing too crazy, all right? Jacob needs you."

Lois frowned at him. "I'll never intentionally do anything that will make my son motherless, Smallville. You know that."

Clark sighed. "It's what you don't intend that worries me, Lo."

Lois smiled as Jacob made his presence known with happy squeals as Clark tickled him behind her. She went to unlock the front door but found that it was already open. Shrugging, she walked inside and saw a blonde head of hair sitting on the couch. She looked back at Clark. "You should take him upstairs." He nodded and did so as she finished wiping some snow off her shoulder and started getting it out of her hair. "Chloe? You never beat us home." Lois took off her coat and set it aside before spotting the scotch near Chloe and nodding at it. "What's with the drink?"

"Special occasion: The guy I've been sleeping with sold his company to Lex. The only condition of the sale was that I get fired. As such, I am once again without work."

"What?" Lois walked over and sat down next to her, gaping. "Are you kidding me?"

"Couldn't make this up if I tried. I was always much better with truth than fiction."

"Are you..." Lois stopped herself from asking if Chloe was okay, because that would be idiotic. "Well, that would be a stupid question. How are you doing?"

Chloe took a sip of her drink, eyes wide as she nodded slowly. "I've felt worse. This is right up there with everything else that's happened, though, because I got screwed by a guy I thought wouldn't do that to me. Another nice one bites the dust, I guess. Damn shame you, Lucy and Lana got the only good ones left in the state of Kansas."

Something like this was happening again? How? How could this keep happening to Chloe? "Oh hon," Lois said as she pulled Chloe into a sideways hug. "I'm so sorry."

Lois let Chloe rest her head on her, and saw her wipe away a tear with her thumb. "Better I know now rather than sometime in the future when he found a girl he liked better than me. At least this time I only lose out to money. Apparently twice the amount of what a company is worth down the line is how much it takes to not care about me."

"Hey," Lois said, "no amount of money is worth losing you, Chloe. Blake is just a greedy asshole that doesn't know how good he had it, being with you. I promise you, all this is going to end soon with you being happy again and it will be a bad memory you can just forget about."

"I am going to kill him, Smallville! Kill. Him. I don't care what it takes, he is going down!"

Clark looked away from Jacob and over at Lois, who was visibly fuming as she stood in the doorway. "What happened? Who are you going to kill?"

"Who do you think? Lex!"

"All right," Clark said as he picked Jacob up. "What happened to provoke this outburst?"

Lois unbuttoned her shirt and pulled it off before walking into the closet and grabbing another one. She slipped it on over her head before starting. "So, Chloe's at work today, just another day. Blake calls her into his office, and she thins it's for some extra curricular stuff, ya know? But she goes in there, and he tells her that he's sold the company. To Lex. The only requirement for sale? Chloe gets fired."

Clark worked his jaw a couple times and tried to find something to say, at least something beyond single syllables, but found himself lacking. "_What_?"

"Yeah! He bought the dang company from Stanton and Chloe got fired by the man she's been sleeping with. I mean, it's always doubtful that sleeping with the boss is going to end well, as I once so successfully showed, but this? He knew what Lex had done to Chloe, but his pupils turned into cartoon dollar signs when Lex made an offer!"

Clark frowned, not knowing what to do to quell Lois's anger. He looked down at Jacob, who was looking up at him, and smiled. "Hey, you wanna go see your mommy?"

Jacob reached up and started playing with his chin, which Clark figured was a sure, why not. He walked over to Lois and nudged her a little, making her take her eyes off the wall where it looked like she was trying to duplicate his heat vision. She looked over and he quickly placed Jacob in her arms before she could say no, because knowing her she wouldn't want to calm down.

As soon as she was holding Jacob, though, she visibly relaxed. She glared up at him a moment from under her eyebrows. "You could have let me rage on a little longer, Smallville."

"I could, but I don't like seeing you so upset."

"I'm sure our son will appreciate being used to calm me down one day."

Clark smiled and shrugged. "If he marries somebody like you one day, I'm very sure he'll understand. Probably do the same thing, too."

Lois ran a hand back through her hair, smiling at a sleeping Jacob lying on her bed a moment before looking back at her laptop. She breathed out slowly and stretched, rolling her shoulders as she felt her muscles loosen a little bit. She stared at he computer a second before sighing and getting up. She gently picked up Jacob and took him to his room, laying him in his crib and giving him a quick peck on the forehead before heading back to her room.

Stopping, she instead headed downstairs and into the kitchen, grabbing a bowl of grapes out of the refrigerator and plopping herself down in the livingroom. Having done research for hours on end, with her only small break to lull Jacob into sleep, she needed a short break so her brain could recharge.

She was about to flip on the television when the was a gust of air and Clark appeared in front of her in his Superman tights, and not looking like he brought good news. He slouched down on the couch as she popped a grape into her mouth. "Marianne Stone is dead."

Lois spit the grape out so she could talk. "WHAT?"

Clark nodded. "House fire."

"Was is arson?"

"I don't know. I put out the fire with relative ease but found her body in the kitchen. The fire officials are going to determine what caused it in the next day or two."

Lois cursed as she sat forward and let her elbows rest on her knees. "Do you think Lex might have had anything to do with this?"

"I don't know, Lois. It really may have been an accident."

"Chloe's luck can't possibly be that bad, Smallville. Nobody has luck so bad that one of the people that can get her name cleared and prove Lex is guilty just happens to die in a house fire. It's too much coincidence for me to believe that we try to get in contact with her and she dies before we can."

"I guess we'll see, Lo."

"Yeah, we will." Lois looked over at Clark. "Will you go check on Aaron Davis? You don't have to let him know you're there, just make sure that he's alive, will ya? I could use the peace of mind."

Clark smiled and kissed her on the cheek before disappearing from sight. Lois pulled her hair out of her eyes and started eating the grapes that she'd set on the coffee table in front of her. It was more of an unconscious action than anything. Her leg bounced with impatience as she waited for Clark to return from checking.

Half an hour later Lois was about to book a flight to Oregon when Clark sped into the room. "Where the hell have you been, Smallville? I thought..." Lois trailed off as she noticed the troubled look on his face. "Oh God, what happened?"

"I found his body outside his cabin. It looked like somebody had dragged him out there and executed, Lois. There were two gunshot wounds to his heart and one to his head. I alerted local authorities before coming back."

Lois just stood there, stunned. "W-When?"

"It looked recently. I assume that in such a remote place wild animals are prominent, and would have gotten to his body if it had been too long. It was probably this afternoon or evening."

Lois sat down heavily in a chair. "What are we going to do if they got to Hewlett, Smallville? There's no doubt in my mind that Marianne Stone was killed by arson, now. That means two potential sources for making things right for Chloe are gone. All we have left is Hewlett."

"I know. I wish I had more to say, but I know."

Lois sighed and looked up at Clark. "It has to be Lex. It's too much coincidence for Chloe to lose her job as she did and have two of the people that can make her story true all in the same day."

Clark disappeared for a second and reappeared in jeans and a t-shirt, and picked Lois up, sitting in the chair and setting her down in his lap. He wrapped his arms around her, and as much as Lois wanted to say something about it, she really didn't mind the holding at the moment. All the strength she'd had seemed to have melted out of her with the nights news.

"What are we going to do, Smallville?"

"We're going to find Hewlett, protect him and make sure that we can see justice done not only for Chloe, but Marianne Stone and Aaron Douglas as well. They all deserve it."

"Mama. Mama. Mama."

Lois smiled and got some food on the tiny spoon in her hands. "I hear ya, Jacob. And here comes some fooooood!" She ended the word as the spoon went into Jacob's mouth, though some of it quickly dribbled down onto his chin. She saw Chloe walk into the kitchen out of the corner of her eye. Jacob bounced a little in his high chair before Lois spooned another bite into his mouth and wiped some food off his chin. She looked over at Chloe and smiled.

"Morning, Chlo."

"Hey. I thought you guys would have taken off to the office by now."

Lois shook her head and gave Jacob another bite of food. "Clark already headed to the office. I'm covering a news conference this afternoon and told Perry that I was going to take the morning off to spend with Jacob and you before leaving yesterday." She probably could have told Chloe that it was the news conference about Lex's acquisition of Stanton Tech, but she doubted that making Chloe bristle with rage this early in the day was a good thing.

"Oh. Are you taking Jacob with you?"

"Actually, I thought I'd leave him here with you."

"Ok then. Did you have anything specific in mind for this morning? I hadn't planned on anything more than sitting around in the basement all day."

"Nope. Sitting around and talking with my cousin sounds like a good morning to me."

Lois made a face at Jacob before giving him another bite, smiling as he made a little noise. He looked over at Chloe for a second as she came and sat down at the table before he looked back over and took another bite. Lois didn't look away from him when she spoke. "So, tell me, how have you been feeling?"

Lois expected Chloe to say fine, as was her inclination the last couple days, but instead got a real answer. "You know how you describe your love for Jacob? The total, complete love I probably don't comprehend very well?"

Lois nodded and smiled at Jacob. "I vaguely recall that, don't I little guy?"

"Well, think of that, but replace the love for Jacob with anger at life, and Lex in particular."

Lois looked over at her. "What?"

"Since I got fired on Monday, I haven't felt anything but angry. I wake up and I feel angry. I sit and watch TV and I'm angry. If I could get everything that has happened out of my head, I might feel better, but I'm stuck with my knowledge. The only reason you haven't really seen me blow a fuse or something is because I keep it in check while I'm with you guys. I have some pillows downstairs that have taken a beating, though."

After being quiet for a moment, Chloe went on as she frowned. "I have been overwhelmingly angry for days and it's starting to scare me a little because I'm getting used to it, and it's starting to be normal instead of strange."

"You're getting used to being angry all the time? How?"

Chloe pointed at Jacob. "How did you get used to loving Jacob?"

Lois spread her hands out and shrugged. "I got used to it because that's just the way things were after he was born. It just... was."

"That's exactly how I feel about being angry. It's just the way things are now. I know it's only been three days but it's been so mind consuming that I would drown in it if I didn't do something to adapt to it."

Lois tried to imagine what it would be like, to be so angry that it became as overwhelming as her love for Jacob. Her love for Jacob was so huge that she didn't even know if overwhelming did it justice. It was an all consuming force that had hit her as soon as he'd been placed on her stomach by the doctor when he was born. It was just total and unrelenting.

But to be like that with anger instead of love... Lois tried to imagine what the would be like to be so angry that all she could do was adapt to it instead of finding a way to vent it. She remembered how she'd felt the other night when Clark had told her about Marianne Stone and Aaron Douglas, and how angry she'd been beneath the shock. There had been, and still was a lot of anger, but she had so many things to offset it. What did Chloe have?

Jesus, she'd been so badgering to her cousin that she'd made it so Chloe couldn't even vent her anger to her. She'd take one of the few things Chloe still had and made it useless. How could she have been so stupid? Why couldn't she have just lent a sympathetic ear instead of tried to force things to happen?

"If you are trying to think things through, I'm sorry to interrupt but we're starting to get worried. As much as he likes me, I think Jacob still likes you a little better."

Lois blinked and looked up, looking over at Chloe and Jacob after a second.

"Hey, there ya are cuz. Have a good think?"

"Uh, yeah. How long did I space out?"

"A few minutes. Jacob was still hungry, though, so I took up the mantle of spoon user. What happened?"

Lois stood up and paced a little before answering. "I was trying to imagine how you feel. I was trying to figure out what it would be like to have the same strength of feeling that I have about Jacob, except have it be anger. I couldn't do it, though. I couldn't imagine being that angry."

Chloe smiled at her sadly. "Good. I wouldn't want anybody I care about to have to feel like this. I want you and everybody else happy and not able to even imagine what I feel like."

"I want to understand how you feel, Chloe."

Chloe spooned another bite into Jacob's mouth, not looking at Lois. "I don't want you to understand how I feel. I don't want anyone to have to understand how I feel."

Lois sighed. She was sure that Chloe meant it as a noble gesture, but it scared her that her cousin was at such a place.

Lois pushed her way through the small crowd of journalists that had assembled for Lex's announcement until she got to a spot she liked. She didn't have to wait long for the news conference to start as a lady stepped up to the podium. Unfortunately, there was no sign of Lex, which meant she wouldn't get to pose her questions to him directly.

"Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Tracy Thompson, head of public relations for LexCorp. This conference is to officially announce the acquisition of Stanton Technologies into the holdings of LexCorp. I have a short statement that Mr. Luthor would like me to read before we get to questions."

"'Stanton Technologies is a promising young company that I've had my eye on for some time now. With proper guidance and financing I feel strongly that its innovations will only add positively to the LexCorp family and bring about change in the world.'"

The spokesperson put the paper down and pulled off her glasses, indicating the question part of the session. She pointed at Lois, whose hand had gone up quickly.

"Lois Lane, Daily Planet. I'm curious as to why this deal happened. The company is a good year away from being worth half this much money according to numerous business insiders. What prompted Lex to pay at least twice, if not more than that, what he could have with no competing offers in the mix?"

The lady at the podium shuffled papers a second before answering. "Mr. Luthor feels strongly that this could be a great company in the near future, and wanted no doubt left in Mr. Stanton's mind that he meant that. He wanted to act swiftly and decisively to bring the company into the LexCorp family."

The lady quickly turned to another reporter and took another question. Lois raised her hand again a couple times for more questions and wasn't called on again. Shocking. The day she went away from a LexCorp press conference feeling as though she had answers to what she'd asked was the day she took up the mantle of Superman for Clark.

Lois winced as Jacob fell over as he ran, hitting his head on the floor. The reaction almost instantaneous, he let out a plaintive wail and got up again, walking over to her and wrapping his arms around her legs as he sobbed. Lifting him up into her lap, she sighed and murmured some comforting words to him, which slowly but surely calmed him down. She placed a gentle kiss on the spot where he'd hit his head before running a hand over his back.

"Lois Lane?"

Lois looked up and found herself staring at a delivery man holding an envelope. She smiled, signing quickly before taking the envelope and opening it. She dumped the contents on her desk, finding it to be nothing but a piece of paper. Confused, she picked it up and read it.

Starbucks on the corner. 4:30. Alone.

Lois flipped the page over, not seeing any other text. She looked up to see if the messenger was still there, but he'd gone. Checking her watch, she found that it was still an hour until the meeting. Clark certainly wouldn't like her going alone, especially not for an anonymous message. Who the hell could it be?

The time seemed to pass quickly, and Clark finally got back from Superman duties just as she was getting up. "Hey, where are you going?"

"Going to go get some good coffee at Starbucks. You want anything?"

Clark shook his head and took Jacob from her. "No, I think we're all right."

Lois smiled at them and gave each a quick peck before hurrying to the elevator. The ride down seemed to take forever, but soon enough she was on the ground floor and walking through the annoying cold to the Starbucks. When she got there, she went inside and ordered, getting her coffee quickly and sitting down at a table. She waited there a few minutes and was looking around when a man sat down in front of her.

"I appreciate you following instructions, Miss Lane. I hate it when I have to skip a meeting with somebody that can't."

Lois looked at him a moment, unable to recognize him. "Who the hell are you?"

"Well, that's fair. I believe you didn't expect to hear from me until the end of the year."

Her eyes went wide and she put down her coffee instead of taking a sip. "Dr. Hewlett?"

He nodded. "I'm taking extra precautions these days after what happened to Aaron and Marianne. Damn shame, though it is what prompted me to help sooner rather than later."

"I didn't know if you'd heard about them or not."

"I did. Had I not been traveling, I'm quite certain that I'd be dead right along with them." He released a heavy sigh, then tossed a disc up on the table. "That's a digital recording I was able to salvage from Marianne's house. It should be enough hard evidence to do the trick."

"Wait, wait wait," Lois said, grabbing the recording. "Why the hell would she have this? More to the point, why are you giving this to me?"

"Marianne was such a believer in our work on second generation meteor infected people that she brought in the recorder to work one day. It was small, and nobody even knew that she had it until she told me about it once. She wanted proof of the work we were doing so that she could one day show it to her grandchildren and say that she helped the human race become what it was."

"So Lex has no idea this exists?"

Hewlett shrugged. "Not unless he's psychic. Like I said, her recorder was never noticed and she said that I was the only one I told."

"So how did you get it?"

"I was already in the area when her house burned down, so went to see if there was anything left. The fire workers pulled out a fire proof box, I stole it and that was in it. It's now yours."

"Did you watch it?" He nodded. "What's on it?"

"Mostly people we worked on. She got Aaron's face on there, but that can't come back to haunt him now. My voice is there, but not my face. I'm turning myself in anyway, so that doesn't really matter. Marianne isn't on there physically, but she basically narrates a tour of the facility and talks about Lex. The only way it would be more incriminating is if she had seen Lex there."

Walking back into the bullpen, Lois took off her coat and grinned as Clark stood up to greet her. She jumped into his arms and hugged him for all she was worth for a moment.

"That must have been some amazing coffee."

Lois laughed and handed the disc to Clark. "That is Chloe's ticket back into a good life. Put it in your computer."

Clark looked skeptical, but he did as told and soon they were watching exactly what Dr. Hewlett had said they would be watching. Lois told Clark what had happened and after a quick frown on his part, she made him see that the information was worth it. Taking the disc, they went to Perry's office. Lois walked in without knocking, per usual, and placed the disc on Perry's desk.

"The hell is that, Lane?"

"Proof."

"Of?"

"Of the fact Chloe was telling the truth, Perry. We've been investigating, and have turned up evidence that will make Chloe's article truthful once more, though technically it always has been. It's basically a guided tour of the facility she wrote about, time stamped to February 17th of this year."

Perry popped the disc into his computer and watched what came up. He grinned and stopped it a moment later. "Unbelievable, Lane. You give me an article to go with that and we'll print it in tomorrow's morning edition."

An hour later Lois handed a had copy to Perry, grinning like crazy. She couldn't have stopped herself had she tried.

Getting out of the car, Clark tossed Lois his keys as she walked up the sidewalk to the front door. She'd apparently forgotten hers that morning, which was odd but not unheard of. He noticed that her car wasn't in the driveway, but figured that she must have parked in the garage the previous night.

"Chloe! Hey, Chloe, we have amazing news!"

Clark smiled as he watched Lois run into the house, looking for the blonde. He carried a excited Jacob inside as he pushed the door closed with his foot. He let the boy down and he took off after his mother, running as best his legs could carry him. Lois picked him up when she came back into view and nodded at the door to the basement. "You check down there, Smallville. I think Jacob needs a change."

He nodded and headed down into the basement. "Chloe? We have some good news, thought if I tell you I think Lois may throttle me."

Looking around, he found that the only light on was in her bedroom. He made his way over there, but found that it too was empty. The light was coming from her closet, so he went towards it. It was devoid of Chloe. Turning around, Clark looked back into Chloe's room and saw a box sitting on her bed. He walked over to it and found a cigarette pack inside it.

Then he caught a familiar whiff.

Grabbing the pack, he flipped it open and found no cigarettes. Instead, he found what he recognized to be a one hitter. Sighing, he let his head drop. Chloe was smoking pot. It had been her that he'd smelled it on. Lois had been so adamant that she'd talked him out of it being Chloe, even when he'd smelled it on her a few more times.

Looking at the box again, Clark spotted something else inside it. He reached down and picked up a bullet. Eyes wide for a second, Clark super sped up into the house and found Lois. She frowned at him. "You didn't find her either? Dang, where could she be?"

"I don't know," he said, "but I found these on a box on her bed."

Clark held up the one hitter and bullet an Lois gawked at each. "What the hell? She was smoking weed? And what the hell does she need a bullet for?"

"Smoking pot aside, I assume the bullet is for a gun."

Lois looked up at him. "Does she _have_ a gun?"

"I don't know, but apparently she's very good at hiding things that aren't my secret because neither of us knew she smoked pot."

She sighed and rubbed at her temples. "You knew she was smoking weed, Smallville, and I wouldn't listen. Dammit, where the hell could she have gone? And why the hell would she have a gun? I mean, if you found a bullet in that box then she had to have taken any gun she has with her, right?"

"I would assume so, Lo. I don't think she would ever use it though, do you?"

"I don't know, Clark. We were talking last month, and she said that she is angry all the time. The way she described it, I wouldn't be surprised if that anger had festered to a point where she could use it."

Clark sighed and rubbed his face a couple times, sighing. "Then the big question is, where has Chloe gone and what's she doing?"


	13. Section 3: Lost & Found Chapter 1

Part Three: Lost and Found

----Chapter One: On The Way

Tapping her fingers on the steering wheel, Chloe frowned impatiently as the red light held her at a stop. While she knew that she really hadn't been sitting there all that long, it felt like it had been an hour. She felt like she should be able to move unimpeded on her way to deal with Lex. It was for the good of the city, for the good of all people in the city, so they should be moving out of her way and letting her get down to business. The fact that it would make her feel better wasn't really important... well, not until Lex was dead.

Of course, to get to Lex she was going to have to get around all sorts of security. She had most measures taken care of with the things that Ollie had gotten for her. Contacts that were perfect replicas of Lex's iris scan, a latex glove with his fingerprints on it and a pass key into the most secure parts of the building.

Now all she'd have to deal with is the people.

She didn't want to kill any of the security force. Most of them probably had a family to go home to, or at least a loved one somewhere. She had been stripped of most of her family, and didn't want others to have to deal with that feeling.

Chloe knew that it was entirely possible she could lose her life in trying to take down Lex. It wasn't just a possibility, it was a likelihood. If she came out of this unscathed, she'd have to question if what happened was real. No, her death was probably how this would end. It was how so many people that dealt with Luthor had their dealings with him end.

Running a hand back through her hair, Chloe sighed as the light finally changed and she could take off towards the city again. What would her death do to Lois and Clark? God, it would probably free them up more than anything. Lois would get to stop worrying about her so much, and taking time out of her day to make sure that she was ok when she knew she wasn't. Not having to support a deadbeat cousin was probably the best thing that could happen to Lois.

And hell, if she did die, it was probably what was best for Jacob. She loved that little boy so much. He was all the best parts of Lois and Clark wrapped up in one tiny package, and how could she not just love that to death? But having to be around her all the time couldn't be good for him. Her life was so bad that eventually things would be bad just being around her. She didn't want anything about his life to ever be bad, so maybe this would be for the best.

Of course, on the off chance she didn't die in her attempt to kill Lex, where was she going to go from there? She could probably erase any physical evidence of her crime, as well as delete any video taken. She'd hacked Lex's systems enough times over the years to know where to find what. Would that be good enough? Hell, she could dump gun pieces all over the river and they wouldn't be able to trace it back to her anyway after she wiped her prints.

The only real problem would be lying to Lois and Clark. That would probably buy her some time, but they would figure it out eventually. It's what they did, and she wasn't good enough to never get caught. God, with all the thinking about how she would actually kill Lex, she'd failed to put any real forethought into what she would do once he was dead. If she got out of the building alive, she was going to have to make some quick decisions.

Focusing her eyes on the road, Chloe put all the thoughts about after the fact out of her head. One step at a time was the best way to go about things, of course. The first step was getting into the building and Lex's office. That as all she could afford to think about right now.

Chloe let all the lights of the city drown out her thoughts. They were still a little way in the distance, but they stood out against the night strongly. She could tell which building was which simply by how it was lit after spending so many years in the city. She imagined that was true for most people, but that recognition gave her a sense of belonging. Only people that have spent a lot of time in the city can name a building by its lights.

Realizing that it might be the last time she ever got to take in the skyline like this, Chloe did her best to commit the outline of the city to memory. Not that she needed a memory if she was going to die. A memory seemed like the last thing she would need if she died in her attempt to make the world a place without Lex Luthor, but this might be her last good thought about the world.

No, that wasn't true. She knew as soon as she had the thought that her final happy thought about her time in the world would be about the time that she spent with Lois and Clark.

The fact that she'd gotten to spend her life next to two figures that loomed as large as they did made her feel like she'd lived a life few got. Up until everything had gone wildly wrong, she really had been one of the privileged few to see greatness in an up close and personal sense. Every now and again, she'd even gotten to take part in it.

She would be forever grateful to them for letting her be a part of their lives. It was painfully obvious that with a few turns in another direction here and there, they still would have found a way to be together but they may have never even heard of her. Well, Lois would have heard of her, what with the cousin thing, but one minor twist in the road and she's never that close to Lois and they make their respective marks on the world without her even knowing that she could have had a minor part in the whole thing.

Of course, in the grand scheme of things they may not have met for a good while longer than it took them to meet in Smallville. Without being forced to move there by her dad, Chloe didn't think Lois would have ever set foot in Smallville before meeting Clark Kent. But they would have ended up together, she was sure of that. Were she to believe in fate, she knew that they were the closest thing she would ever see to fate.

And of course, were she to believe in something intangible and ridiculous like fate, she knew that fate would have her dying alone way, WAY down the line. With the way her life had gone, it just felt to her like she would lead a long, sad life all by her lonesome. She'd have Lois and Clark and their family to spend time with, but he'd never have somebody special.

God, would she even curse somebody to spend the rest of their lives with her? Nothing good could come from that, could it? She had no prospect of success in her professional life. If she did beat the odds and settle down, could she be happy as a housewife? Jesus, would she want to try? She couldn't stand her life without work in it now, but to be fair the only thing that had made her latest job tolerable was Blake.

Fucking Blake.

She didn't know if she could have loved him, but if nothing else he had made her feel like her life wasn't total shit anymore. He was kind of like a patch for the hole where her heart had been after Mark. Of course, that patch had been torn away and the hole was made even deeper. She didn't know if she'd ever find it again. It barely felt like she'd had one in the first place.

Chloe tapped her foot impatiently on the clutch, waiting for yet another light to turn green. So far it felt like she was hitting all the damn lights just wrong, making the drive into the city take far longer than it should.

She didn't know why, but she didn't really feel nervous going into this. Shouldn't a person on the road to kill another person feel nervous? Had she lost so much of her humanity through the last six and half months that she no longer felt the same things that other people felt?

Or maybe this was the way all people felt when they felt they had to kill somebody. Maybe a lack of nerves is what made it possible.

Chloe's thoughts were interrupted by a buzzing on the passenger seat. Glancing over, she saw her phone light up. A picture of Lois popped up on the screen, and she sighed. She knew it was coming. Here's hoping her story held up long enough to avoid any interference. She grabbed the phone and answered. "Hey, Lo."

"Chloe, you want to tell me why Clark found a box with a bullet and weed in it?"

Wow, was that stupid. Why the hell hadn't she taken a minute to hide her hitter? "Uh, well, the bullet is because I bought a gun after I got mugged to feel a little safer. The weed, well... uh, I got tricked into it?"

"Try again, and this time don't say your excuse as a question."

"Fine, you want to hear my reasons? My life sucks. My life has sucked for the last six months, and getting so high that I forget about my problems for a little while has really helped me. For a little while a couple times a week I'm not dwelling on the fact that my life had no purpose, no meaning and no impact."

"You felt so bad about everything that you turned to getting high? Chloe, why couldn't you come talk to me?" Chloe was about to respond but Lois beat her to the punch. "Of course you couldn't talk to me, I probably would have told you to find a guy. This is almost entirely my fault."

Chloe was speechless for a moment. "What... what? Almost entirely your fault?"

"I'm still giving you your due blame for smoking weed. Doing it in college, while not the best thing is understandable. Doing it at the age of 32 just to make yourself forget that you life sucks? I'm not all right with that. And yes, I know that had I not been so insistent about fixing your life in my stupid, stupid way that you may not have needed to use drugs to escape, but that's all in the past as of this moment."

"So... what are you saying?"

"I'm saying that I'm sorry for the way I've acted. Trying to get you to find a guy so that you could have what I have was monumentally stupid. I know that you have to find your own happiness, just like I did, but I'm not good at seeing people I love in pain. It make me want to find a way to stop the pain. Most of the time I succeed, this time I failed miserably and I'm sorry."

Chloe worked her jaw a moment, trying to find words for a response to what Lois had said. She held the phone to her ear with her shoulder for a second as she changed lanes. "I, uh... thanks, Lois."

"Thank me later. Why the hell do you have a gun?"

"Well like I said, I wanted it for safety after I got mugged and Clark couldn't get there in time to help me."

"No, I remember that. Where are you taking your gun?"

"Shooting range." Wow, that had come to her quickly. "I like to take it out and fire off a couple clips to blow off steam whenever I can't, well, smoke. I hope you don't mind that I took your car."

She heard Lois sigh on the other end. "No, that's all right. Do you take your gun everywhere?"

"No, not everywhere." Chloe stopped and thought a second. "Actually, yeah. I almost always have it in my purse with me."

"Guess there wouldn't be much point to it if you didn't have it with you. Look, will you come home so we can talk about things? I promise that I won't push you to do anything you don't want to do, though I might make a suggestion here and there. But first and foremost, I'll listen. So will Clark. Jacob would, but I imagine he'll be a little too tired to help."

Chloe smiled. "The only help I ever need from Jacob is hugs."

"Well then I promise at least four hugs if you come home right now, Chlo. Talk to me to blow off steam."

Chloe went silent for a moment. She swallowed as she drove onto one of the bridges heading over the river and into the city. "I appreciate the offer Lois, and I may take you up on it later, but right now I need to do this. It helps, and tonight I think it will help more than ever."

"Yeah, ok. Promise me we'll talk when you get home tonight, though, all right? I really want to get some things out in he open so we can move on, so you can move on and find your happiness, wherever that may lie."

Chloe smiled, giving the phone a brief look before saying anything. "Thank you, Lois. I love you."

---

Lois ended the call and frowned, grinding her teeth together for a second before walking out of the den and back upstairs. She found Clark sitting in Jacob's room with, the owner of the room giggling. He looked up at her as she walked over and kneeled next to the chair.

"Did you listen like I asked?" She saw him nod out of the corner of her eye as she smiled at Jacob, who was looking over at her. "What did you hear?"

"She said shooting range too quickly. And it sounded like she was driving over a bridge."

"I agree on the first part, but I couldn't hear the second. Do you think that she is really going to a shooting range?"

"Where else do you think she would go?"

Lois looked down at the floor. "I don't know. I don't know how to tell if she is lying to me anymore, and that kills me. I've lost sight of who Chloe is lately, and it kills me."

"Hey. This isn't your fault."

Lois looked over at Clark. "Isn't it? At least partly, isn't all of this my fault? You heard what she said, Smallville. She's felt so bad that she has to use weed to forget about her life and goes to shooting ranges to blow off steam. The second one I don't have a problem with, but Chloe smoking weed? She wouldn't do it in college for a thousand bucks. It's not who she is.

"Until recently, we've always sort of been each other's release valve. If one of us had too much built up inside we would rant and rave in front of the other, letting everything out in the open so that we could be helped. I took away her release valve and drove her to find other, less healthy outlets. Unfortunately, they don't seem to be helping as much as talking always has. If I could have listened, we might have avoided all this, Smallville."

Lois watched as Clark stood up and took Jacob over to his playpen, placing him don inside before walking back over to her. He pulled her up to her feet and enveloped her in a hug. He always gave really good hugs. "Lo, we're going to figure everything out. Forget about what has already happened and focus on what needs to be done."

"What needs to be done," Lois mumbled into his chest. She looked up at him. "What do you think needs to be done?"

"I think whatever needs to be done is whatever you want to do."

Lois frowned. "That's not much of an answer."

"It's the truth. What do you want to do? Do you want to wait for Chloe here, or do you want to track her down, wherever she may be?"

Lois stared at him for a minute before looking over at Jacob as he called for her. She smiled and waved at him. "I want to track her down, Clark. I want to find her and take her out to dinner, just us adults, so that we can talk and clear the air. I don't know if she's really going to a shooting range or not, but that's where we should start looking."

"All right, that sounds good. Why don't you go look up shooting ranges in the phone book. I'll call Lucy to see if she and Jimmy can watch Jacob tonight."

Lois held up a hand to stop him. "No, call your mom and see if she can have him out at the farm instead. Lucy is eight, almost nine months pregnant and doesn't need to be chasing Jacob around, not to mention she could go into labor at any time."

Clark nodded and grabbed Jacob before walking out of the room. Lois stood there a second, closing her eyes and gathering herself. Hopefully Chloe wouldn't be angry once they found her. Maybe Lois would even shoot off a couple round from Chloe's gun, who knows. That seemed like optimistic thinking, but she felt like she could use the optimism at the moment. With one last exhaled breath, Lois opened her eyes and walked out of Jacob's room.

Heading downstairs, Lois found Clark already bundling up Jacob in a couple layers of clothes. She flashed each a tight smile and headed into the kitchen, grabbing the phone book out of the drawer and flipping through the pages. She was about to start looking through names and locations when Clark walked into the kitchen.

"I talked to mom, she said it'd be fine to leave him with her for the night."

"Good. We left food and everything out there last time we stayed with her, right?"

Clark nodded. "Yeah, but I'm taking extra stuff anyway. As we've become well aware of, one can never have too many diapers." He walked over to her and let her give Jacob a hug and kiss before getting a peck on the cheek for himself. "I'll be back in a little while."

Lois smiled at him as he walked out before focusing on the telephone book again. Grabbing a pen and a piece of paper, she started sorting the ranges into those in the city and those outside the city. Since Clark had heard a bridge, she figured that Chloe was most likely in the city, but that didn't rule out all the bridges so she listed every one in the book.

Once she had them all listed, Lois took the list out into the living room and pulled out her laptop. Once on the internet, she checked to make sure that all the addresses in the phone book were current and checked to make sure that she had all the ones possible. She found a couple that weren't listed in the book, which made her happy she'd thought to double check.

Sitting in the living room, her feet bounced in anticipation of finding Chloe. She didn't know why, but she felt like there was more on the line than just finding her cousin so they could talk about things. She didn't want to call it life or death, but she felt like she always did when she was about to go into an investigation she knew could get her into trouble. Unfortunately, she generally felt much better about those than she did this.

Her anxious energy overtook he a moment later and Lois bounced up out of her seat. Tearing the list in half, she left the list of places outside the city on the coffee table and quickly scrawled a note to Clark in the top margin. Jogging towards the front door, Lois grabbed her coat before grabbing Clark's keys and heading outside. She popped into the car and turned it on. Taking one last deep breath, she buckled herself in and backed out of the driveway, heading in the direction of the city.

Pulling on her gloves, Chloe walked out of the parking garage and tucked her hands into her coat pockets for extra warmth. Looking back over her shoulder, she smiled as she spotted the indoor gun range that she'd parked near. She knew Lois would want to come look for her. Sitting and waiting was like the anti-Lois action, so she'd needed to find a place. This one would do.

Looking back to the way her bod was faced, Chloe let the smile melt away. Her jaw set with resolve, she looked around the skyline until she spotted the LexCorp building a couple blocks away. Exhaling through her nose, she waited for traffic to be stopped before crossing the street. No point doing something stupid like getting hit by a car before she could finish things with Lex.


	14. Section 3: Lost & Found Chapter 2

---- Chapter 2: Search & Destroy

Walking along the sidewalk, Chloe hunched her shoulders a bit as the wind nipped at her neck. Everything had seemed to have come together for her except the weather, which while clear was quite chilly. Glancing up at the sky, there weren't many stars visible because of the ambient light. That had always been something that she had loved about her time in Smallville. Stars. Such an odd thing to remember, but they were always so prevalent in the night sky there.

Pulling her hands out of her pockets for a second as she stopped at an intersection, Chloe looked up at the looming buildings above her. LexCorp dominated this part of the skyline, but if she glanced off to her left a little the globe on The Daily Planet took over as the main attraction to the eye.

She had loved that place like so many people loved their family homes. Most people thought of a family home as where they grew up; Chloe thought of f the Daily Planet. She'd gone in there as a nothing, working as hard as she could for years on end to become one of the top people, one of the best. When she had finally earned her way into the bullpen, it had been one of the best days of her life, almost a graduation of sorts.

There had even been a celebration. Lois had thrown her a party when it had finally happened, and she'd done the same for Lois when she'd gotten up there. The fact that it had basically happened at the same time had ended up making it a joint party, which had really just made it all the more special. They'd done it together.

Snapping out of her thoughts as people around her began moving, Chloe started walking along with them.

For a time it had been Sullivan and Lane, or Lane and Sullivan depending on who you asked or who you were around. They'd done so much good work together that it had been strange working on her own when Perry had split them up. He'd started using them on their own and with other writers, a move which he had referred to as 'spreading the wealth.' They'd still helped each other with things after that, of course, but they'd never technically been a team again.

For all intents and purposes, though, Lois had grown up with her at the Planet. They'd actually become closer through their time together there. It didn't matter that Lois seemed to have garnered more of the attention because Chloe wasn't in it for the attention. Her articles had done just as much good as Lois' had.

But then there was the teaming of Lane and Kent. Chloe smiled as she walked, rolling her eyes a bit at how good a team those two had become almost against all odds. Opposite personalities to the extreme. But when Clark had fallen about a month after getting back from his travels, well, Chloe knew that he was never coming back. He was _gone_.

She'd watched him pine for Lana. That had been painful. She'd also watched him try to figure out his feelings for Lois and then try to figure out if he could do anything about it. Him not doing anything about it for a year and a half had been an entirely different sort of painful.

In the end, of course, everything had worked out for them. She'd been lucky enough to be involved in their courtship... why the hell did she just think courtship? She'd been lucky enough to help with the wedding plans, being Lois's maid of honor, and then being later on when Jacob was born. _Long_ night. And that had only been one year, one month and one day before where she was now. Amazing what a difference 396 days could make.

Picking up the pace of her step, Chloe wondered just how different her life would have been had there been a small turn along the way. She most likely wouldn't be on her way to kill Lex. No, that was definitely a consequence of some very bad turns in her life. Maybe if something had gone right along the way, she'd have a husband, a house and a son.

But her life hadn't taken different turns. It had taken the ones it had taken, and there was no way to change that. It had led her to this point, and now she was going along. Looking up again, LexCorp stood menacing before her. Time to go to work.

---

Flying into the house, Clark stopped at the base of the stairs after doing a quick clothes change. He did a quick x-ray of the house and didn't see Lois anywhere. He was less than shocked that she hadn't waited for him. Walking into the living room, he started to pull his cell phone out of his pocket when he noticed a piece of paper on the coffee table. Picking it up, he saw that it was a list in Lois' handwriting with a note at the top.

These are all the gun ranges outside the city. Chloe could be anywhere, so you check these. I also made a list of places she could be in the city, so I'm checking them because they're much more bunched together. Call me when you find her or when you run out of places to look. Sorry I didn't wait for you. Love you.

Releasing a sigh, Clark sped back into his Superman suit and locked the door behind him as he took off to check the list Lois had given him.

---

Lois pressed on the gas pedal a little harder, pushing the car to go a little more over the speed limit. She'd been fortunate enough to hit a bunch of green lights so far, and was driving a little more quickly than she normally did. She really wanted to find Chloe, hug her and just listen to her rant and rave about things, like it had been so many times before. There had always been something that one of them had wanted to rant and rave about, though nothing quite so serious as what had happened between them recently.

Scratching at her arm, she let her left foot bounce a little since it didn't have its usual clutch to take care of. She let her fingers tap out a beat on the steering wheel as Whitesnake played on the radio. When she'd turned on the music, she'd gotten away from Clark's stations and found her favorite, hoping the familiar tunes would soothe her a bit. It hadn't helped.

For some reason, she just couldn't get past her worries that Chloe wasn't going to a gun range. It seemed too easy, the way things had been going. She trusted what Chloe said, though, at least enough to try looking through the names she'd found in the phone book and online to find her. Unfortunately, she didn't know where else Chloe would be. She could be anywhere if she wasn't at one of the ranges.

Rubbing at her head, Lois felt the beginnings of a headache coming on. It was going to be one of those dull throbs right in the middle of her forehead that she despised. Not that she had a preferred form of headache, but those were the worst.

Letting her eyes focus off in the distance for a moment, she took in the lit skyline of Metropolis. She loved her city; there was no place in the world she'd rather live and make her family. She lived fifteen minutes from downtown in a great place that she'd never really seen herself in.

Really, when she'd pictured her future it had always been in the city. Leaving the buzz of downtown for the suburbs had never been her vision of happiness. When she found out that she was pregnant plans had started forming in her head about how they were going to do it.

But then Clark had made his case for getting a house, for having a yard for their son and any subsequent children to play in. Really, his description had been more of an idealized vision, but she knew what he meant. He'd been so adamant about the idea that he'd started taking her around and showing her places in various suburbs. He'd even printed out statistics about schools, crime rates and other things that he thought she would care about. She still hadn't been sure about it.

Then she'd gone to Chloe to talk about things. Chloe had made her see what Clark saw. While she still hadn't shared his enthusiasm for the idea, she had a much better understanding of things and had done her own research on the subject, cashing in a couple favors from researchers at work to do some stats and maps for her, letting her locate the best place to raise a family.

They'd found a good house they both liked, and the rest was recent history.

Chloe had made it possible for her to live in a house she had come to love, in a neighborhood that would give her children a safe place to play.

She wanted that for her cousin, so much, or at least a reasonable facsimile. She'd almost had it, too, or at least they'd all been under that impression. Fucking Mark. Why couldn't he have figured out that not loving her wasn't going to change with time. Why couldn't he have just gotten out after a year instead of staying in, even after finding love at first sight, of all things?

His poor influence, plus her poor instincts had made her push Chloe into something she wasn't ready for. Instead of a shoulder to rest her head on, Chloe had gotten a boot to the ass into singles bars. She'd almost acted like an overbearing mom that didn't know when to quit instead of just being her cousin. God, why had she been so stupid?

No more, though. She still wanted Chloe to find the love that she'd found for herself in Clark, but she wasn't going to push anymore. Pushing led to no good, at least not in this case. Chloe had to find her own path, whatever that might be. Lois hoped dearly that it included happiness. There had been so much misery in the last six months of Chloe's life that she almost doubted there would be happiness in the form of light at the end of the tunnel, but Chloe had to traverse that tunnel on her own terms.

Sighing, Lois noticed that she was getting near to the city now. It probably wasn't good that she'd zoned out while driving. It took something like her love for Chloe to make her do that. Gritting her teeth, Lois exited off the highway and headed towards the city.

---

Plastering a smile on her face, Chloe walked up to the man at the desk and swiped the pass card that Ollie had gotten for her. The light blinked green and the waved her back into the building. Pocketing her card, she kept her eyes peeled as se walked towards the elevator. She waited a moment for it to open up then stepped inside as it did so.

Once the doors closed, she reached into her pocket and pulled out the latex glove that had Lex's fingerprints on it. Pulling off her gloves for a moment, she worked the latex onto her hand then slipped the gloves back on, covering any evidence of it. She flexed her hand a couple times before letting it settle into a pocket like its counterpart.

Looking up, Chloe watched a couple floors fly by on the counter before looking back at the polished doors. Impatience overtook her and she let her heel tap against the floor for a second before she took to swaying her hips from side to side. She felt like she had so much nervous energy waiting to be used that it might start leaking out of her ears soon. Or she would explode. That one seemed extreme and painful.

When she finally reached the floor she wanted, she walked out, doing her best to keep her pace normal instead of dropping into a run that probably would have felt highly rewarding. She let doors pass as she made her way through the hall. She turned a corner and smiled at a couple men walking by, neither of which seemed to notice she existed.

She was here to kill Lex and _they_ couldn't be courteous. Of course, they didn't know that she was in the building to kill Lex, but still, what had happened to the world? Around here it was probably a side effect of being so close to a human that basically radiated evil.

Shaking her head a bit, she focused on the job at hand. Remembering all the information she'd found on the building, she felt that she had a good idea of where exactly she needed to go to get everything done in short order, which is how she wanted things. The less time it took, the better. This was not something that should take her long hours. This taking long hours probably spelled her doom.

Finding the door she wanted, a door so nondescript that it stuck out in a row of nondescript doors, Chloe swiped the pass card and pulled off her gloves, stuffing them into her bag. She pressed her hand, covered by the latex glove onto the fingerprint sensor and the door unlocked. Quickly pulling off the glove, she stuffed it in a pocket and walked in. She gave the room a quick survey, finding it empty, and made her way to a desk in the back. This was the control center for video surveillance in the building, and a very good place to make sure she wasn't seen while doing her thing.

Dropping her bag on the floor as she sat down, Chloe swiped the pass card on the computer system desk, which led her to a screen asking for a password. Smiling, she typed in the password that Ollie had told her. A second later she was into the system. So far, so good.

Making her way through the commands, Chloe scanned each list of things that came up before she finally got to the top floor. There was a camera system for the entirety of the floor, and then a separate system just for Lex's office. Grinning, she paused the cameras on the floor and started writing in some new code. A couple minutes later, the feed that would be seen of the top floor all over the building would be of the floor below it. Fortunately, most of the floors looked the same and the doors to Lex's office were similar to others throughout the building.

Taking a moment, Chloe located all the footage of her in the building and deleted it. Yeah, they'd find the blank spots when they went over the days footage, but with the visual evidence of her being there essentially destroyed, nobody would ever know it was her. Hopefully. If nothing else, it would take longer for them to figure it out.

With that done, Chloe started working on finding the feed for Lex's office. A few minutes later she was frowning; she could hack into the feed and watch it, but she couldn't get access to it beyond that. After a moment more of working on it she sat back in the chair and chewed on her lip. She was going to have to find another way in.

All of a sudden her expression darkened. She moved herself closer to the screen and watched as Lex walked into his office and to his desk. Well, at least he was here. Now if only she could get the damn video feed off. Getting back to the keyboard, Chloe was about to start typing when the door opened. A man walked in and shut the door behind himself.

"Who are you?"

Chloe looked up and did her best to smile, taking in a deep breath and releasing it after a second. "Hi! I'm Sandy, the new security tech worker." Sandy? Why the hell had she said her name was Sandy?

"Why the hell wasn't I told about a new hiring?"

Chloe shrugged. "I'm sorry, I don't know. I was just told that this was the surveillance hub so I came up here to check for holes in the system. Looks like I'm here just in time, too, because without much effort I've managed to get deep into things."

The man stared at her for a moment before walking over slowly and looking at the screen. "What is that?"

"The video feed for Mr. Luthor's office. It only took me a few minutes to get into there."

"What? I designed that system myself! There's no way you should have been able to do that! The only person that has the feed is Mr. Luthor himself, on the computer in his office. It's the hard copy, too."

Wow, that was a whole boatload of information she hadn't wanted to hear. Nice of the guy to tell her everything she needed to hear, though. She shrugged again and looked up at the guy. "What can I say? There's a reason I was hired. I can help you with this for the future, if you want, but right now I need to go attend to some other things."

She got waved away and made her way out of the room. Maybe if she got away with this she could become an actress. That, or the guy she'd just talked to was incredibly gullible. Either way, she needed to get to Lex's office.

---

Up in the sky, Clark flew away from where he'd just stopped a mugging and back towards the last shooting range on his list. He pushed his speed a little and was there seconds later, floating a few hundred feet above it. Looking down, he activated his x-ray vision and looked at the building, but couldn't see into it. Frowning, he tried again but got the same result. Perfect, a place lined with lead.

Flying down and landing in a nearby alley, Clark walked briskly towards the building and went inside, giving the guy at the front desk a nod before saying anything. "Hi, I'm looking for somebody. A blonde woman, average height and weight, maybe a little smaller. Has she been in here tonight?"

"Only woman we have here tonight is Petunia. She isn't average, or anywhere near smaller."

Clark sighed. "Thanks anyway."

Walking out of the building, Clark heading into the night without anywhere to go. He figured he should probably fly to Metropolis to see if he could find Lois. He'd already tried calling her a couple times earlier but hadn't gotten an answer. After a quick change into his suit, he took off into the night.

---

Walking out of yet another failed attempt to find her cousin, Lois blew a thin stream of vapor out of her mouth and into the night. Checking her list, she walked back towards where she had parked her car and ran a hand back through her hair as she got in. Turning on the car, she signaled and pulled into traffic. She still had five or six places to go and was having no luck at all.

Pulling out her cell phone, she looked at the display and found that she'd missed a couple calls from Clark. Hitting the speed dial for him, she waited a moment until he answered.

"Hey, Lo. I was wondering if you were going to get back to me. I'm headed into the city to find you since I couldn't find Chloe at any of the places on my list. I take it you haven't had any luck."

"Very true. I'm just driving to the next place on my list, but I don't know that I expect to find anything. I don't know how I plan to find her, Smallville. If she isn't at one of these shooting places then where is she? Meeting with her dealer? Drinking alone? Normally I wouldn't have as much of a problem with that but with how angry she has been, large amounts of alcohol would be extremely not good. How are we supposed to do this?"

Clark was silent for a moment before speaking. "She took your car, right?"

"Yeah, that's why I'm driving yours."

"Doesn't yours have the customer service, where you can call in and say you forgot where you parked and need help finding it. They can send the GPS info on a map to your cell phone."

Lois broke out into a grin. "Clark, you have no idea how much I love you right now. What's the password for that information?"

"817K512TM. Let me know where to go, ok?"

"I'll call you back in a moment, Smallville."

Ending the call, Lois scrolled through her phone to the number for the car people and hit dial, waiting a moment for somebody to answer. When they did, she gave the person her code and was soon looking at a map and turning in a different direction. Checking her list while keeping one eye on the road, Lois found a shooting range right near there and pumped the fist with the list in it. Dialing Clark again, he answered on the first ring.

"What's the news?"

"The car is in the parking garage on 8th, about six block east of the Planet. There's a shooting range right near there, too. You go check it out while I drive. I'm about five minutes away."

Five minutes later Lois was turning into the garage. It didn't take her long to spot the car because Clark was leaning against it in the clothes he'd worn to work earlier that day. She pulled into the closest parking spot and jogged over to him. "No luck?"

He shook his head. "She's not there, and the people at the front don't recall seeing her."

Lois almost screamed in frustration, but groaned instead. When she looked at Clark again he had the familiar look that said he was heading somewhere else, quickly. He glanced at her, his eyes apologizing without words. She sighed and smiled softly at him, though it didn't reach her eyes. "Go, Smallville. I'll keep you up to date as best I can." He smiled at her and ran off, disappearing from sight a second later.

Not wanting to spend more time in the car, Lois walked out of the parking garage while scratching at her neck. Spotting a penny on the ground, Lois picked up the coin and remembered that picking up a penny was good luck. Luck. Ha! She flipped it over to the heads side and spotted the year: 1987. The year Chloe was born.

Stuffing it in her pocket, sh looked up at the buildings around her and found herself staring at the LexCorp logo a couple blocks away. Frowning, she let her head tilt to the side for a moment. What was it Chloe had said about her anger?

"_You know how you describe your love for Jacob? The total, complete love I probably don't comprehend very well?"_

_Lois nodded and smiled at Jacob. "I vaguely recall that, don't I little guy?"_

_Chloe took another sip of coffee. "Well, think of that, but replace the love for Jacob with anger at life, and Lex in particular."_

Frowning, Lois let her eyes drift away from the building as she walked into the foot traffic and crossed the street as the signal started blinking to stop crossing.

"_Well then I promise at least four hugs if you come home right now, Chlo. Talk to me to blow off steam."_

"_I appreciate the offer Lois, and I may take you up on it later, but right now I need to do this. It helps, and tonight I think it will help more than ever."_

Chloe having a gun wasn't especially bothersome, but would she get proactive with it? Chloe wouldn't go after Lex, would she? Walking a little faster, Lois realized that it might just be that. But Chloe couldn't shoot Lex, could she? Hell, she could take up smoking weed and she basically blamed Lex for all the crap that had gone down in her life, so going after Lex may not be entirely farfetched.

Breaking into a jog, Lois pulled out her cell phone and texted 'LexCorp' to Clark before picking up her pace towards the office building.

---

Stepping out of the elevator, Chloe looked around for a moment and spotted one security guard a little ways in the distance facing away from her. Stepping out of his potential line of sight, Chloe took off her gloves and pulled her gun out of her bag, loading a clip into it. Leaving the safety on, she put it in her coat pocket but left her hand on it.

Taking in a deep breath, Chloe readied herself for the part of the night that was going to test her nerves. She hadn't done through everything just to back out now, though. Twisting her neck so that it cracked, she exhaled and walked around the corner.


	15. Section 3: Lost & Found Chapter 3

---- Chapter 3: Best of Intentions

Running along the sidewalk, Lois slowed down as she came to a door much less advertised than the one at the front of the building. Pulling out her cell phone, she scrolled through numbers until she found the one she was searching for and made the call. Waiting a moment, she prayed that her contact would still be inside.

"Hello?"

Lois just about jumped for joy when she heard that word. "Randy, it's Lois. I need a big favor from you."

"All right, what can I do?"

"Come down to the ground floor and open the door on the south side of the building where we usually meet. Sooner would be much better than later."

"What's going on?"

Lois exhaled an impatient breath through her teeth. "My cousin may very well be in the middle of something stupid. The sooner I get inside the sooner I stop her, so get down here!"

"See you in two minutes, Lane."

---

Walking at a leisurely pace through the hall, Chloe kept her right hand on the gun, flicking the safety off as she got closer and closer to the guard she could see. Leaving a finger hovering to the side of the trigger, she really hoped that the guard wouldn't turn around while she was walking. Halfway there, it seemed like her luck was actually holding out for once.

As she got closer, she quickened her pace but tried to step even more lightly. Just a few steps away, she pulled the gun out of her coat pocket and ran the final few steps until it was nestled against the obviously inept man's back, and he visibly stiffened. Looking past him, Chloe found the stretch of hall empty and took a quick glance back from the way she'd come before looking back at the guard.

"What's your name?"

"Cade."

"Are you married? Girlfriend?" Why had she asked that? How did that possibly matter? She really wasn't cut out for crime.

"Single."

"And what's your job?"

"Personal security."

Chloe shook her head, taking another quick look around. "Good to know that some things never change, such as Lex keeping useless security. All right, Cade, where's the nearest closet?"

"Sixth door on the left, from the way you came."

"Thank you. You're going to turn around and we're going to walk back slowly towards it, all right?"

He nodded, and she took a step back, the gun still trained on him. He turned, frowning as he saw her. With a motion of her finger, she walked backwards slowly and he walked towards her. Counting doors, she got to the sixth door on the left without much trouble. Testing the knob, she found the door unlocked and swung the door open. She motioned at him with her head. "Inside. Face the back."

He did as told. Looking around, she spotted a thing of duct tape on one of the shelves. Turning on the safety, Chloe flipped the gun around, holding it by its barrel, and swung it like a hammer, bringing it down on the back of his head. Cade crumpled to the ground, and Chloe was glad she'd actually knocked him out the first time around. She checked his pulse and found it going slowly but surely, also happy that she hadn't hit him too hard.

After slipping the gun back into her coat pocket, she rummaged through his pockets, pulling a gun out of a holster under his jacket. She put it into her bag before going back to checking his pockets. She pulled a cell phone from another pocket and turned it off before tossing it into a box she saw up on one of the top shelves.

Grabbing the duct tape, she wrapped some around his mouth a few times before tearing it off. Grabbing his legs, she wound tape around them a few times before tearing it off. Dragging him a bit, she got him settled near a post and started wrapping tape around his legs on the post, effectively keeping him in place. After quickly binding his hands with the tape and dropping the tape in her bag, Chloe surveyed what she'd done and gave it a nod of approval.

With everything she was putting in her bag, it popped into her head that it was starting to become some demented form of Mary Poppins' bag. If she found a bazooka, she was definitely trying to stuff it in there.

With a deep breath, Chloe settled herself for what was to come. Opening the closet door, Chloe looked out into the hallway. Grinning at its emptiness. She walked out and closed the door quietly behind herself. Walking towards Lex's office, Chloe let her right hand once again rest on the gun in her pocket.

Just then, a man wearing a suit identical to Cade's walked out of Lex's office and spotted her. He frowned and took up a defensive stance. "Who are you?"

Plastering on a friendly smile, Chloe walked slowly towards the man, trying to think of who she could be. Suddenly, an idea popped into her head. When in doubt, be the blonde cliché. "I'm Sandy, Cade's girlfriend."

"Cade doesn't have a girlfriend."

Chloe let her shoulders slump. "What? Why would he say that? Well, I guess it is kind of soon, since we've only been exclusive for the past couple days, but still, I wish he would have been trumpeting the info from the rooftops. All _my_ friends know." Wow, she'd never known she could speak that quickly.

The guy seemed to inspect her a moment, his eyes lingering far too long on her chest, before looking her in the eyes again. "Nice as it is that Cade got himself a lady, what are you doing here?"

"Well, he told me he worked here at LexCorp as a security guard, so I decided to surprise him! I thought it would be nice to bring him some dinner but I couldn't get him to answer his cell. Do you know where he is? He told me last night that he'd be here."

"No, I don't know where he is, and that's a problem." The man pulled a phone from his pocket and dialed a number. A minute later he shut the phone, his frown ever deeper. "He isn't answering, like you said. I need to find him."

"Will you tell him I'm here when you do?"

"You're coming with me." He grabbed her by the arm and yanked her along as he took off in the other direction from where she'd left Cade. Sighing, she decided she had no other choice but to go along with the charade until she was further from Lex's office. She doubted this guard would go as quietly as Cade did.

---

"What the hell took you so long, Randy? Since when is two minutes equal to ten?"

Lois walked into the building as Randy held the door open for her and he frowned at her. "I got stopped in the hallway by one of the higher ups! What was I supposed to do, blow her off and lose my job so you no longer had a contact in the building?"

Lois nearly growled. "Fine, whatever, thanks." Running into the building, Lois turned the corner and ran into somebody. Mumbling an apology, she kept going without helping whoever it was up and didn't stop until she got to the elevator. Pushing the button, she waited impatiently for it to get there. When it finally dinged, she let people exit before getting in and pushing the button for the top floor. She watched the doors close, and did her best to compose herself for what she hoped wasn't coming.

---

Standing over the unconscious form of the security guard she'd never gotten a name from, Chloe did a quicker tape job on him than she'd done on Cade. Dropping the tape in her bag again, Chloe walked back out into the hallway and quickly walked back towards Lex's office. There was nobody there, and after waiting a second, nobody walked out of his office. Grinning, she opened the doors and walked in, hand once again sitting on top of the gun.

Spotting his bald head, Chloe grinned a little wider when he looked up and was surprised to see her. She stopped a few paces from his desk, not revealing anything yet. "Hello, Lex."

He eyed her a moment before standing up. "Chloe. This is a surprise, and not one I'm especially fond of. It's been a pleasure as always, but please, go ahead and show yourself out before you bother saying anything."

Pulling out the gun, Chloe pointed it at Lex, whose sole response was a quirk of his eyebrow. "I think I'll be here a _little_ longer than that, Lex."

---

Jesus, how many stops was the damn elevator going to make? So far it seemed like every third floor the elevator was stopping to pick somebody up. She had a person to each side of her now, but the elevator stopped and they both exited. Checking the floor they were on, it was only two until the top. Letting out an exasperated sigh, she smiled as the doors closed, it skipped the next floor and it finally got to the top floor, the doors opening far too slowly.

Jogging down the empty hallway, Lois got to Lex's office and took a second to take a couple breaths before pulling the door open and walking in. She was greeted with a sight that she had _really_ hoped she wouldn't see.

---

"Chloe?"

Chloe's head spun backwards and her eyes widened. How had she not heard the door open? That was all kinds of not good, not to mention who it was that said her name being a recipe for disaster for her plans. Her best laid plans apparently meant squat. Turning back to Lex, she eyed him while speaking to her cousin. "Lois, what the hell are you doing here?"

"You have a gun pulled on Lex, Chlo. What I'm doing here doesn't matter."

"So this isn't a joint venture between you two? I thought that where one of you went, the other was never far behind. Though, once you got fired from the paper, Chloe, I'm not surprised you drifted apart."

Gritting her teeth, Chloe didn't spare her cousin another glance. She motioned for Lex to sit down. He smiled at her. "I'm fine right where I am, thank you."

"Lex, sit down, dammit!"

This time Chloe did spare her cousin a glance, wondering why she was the one yelling at him. Looking back at her target, Chloe frowned as he kept on smiling while moving over to his chair and sitting down. Running a hand back through her hair, she tried to figure out what the hell she was going to do. "How did you find me, Lois?"

"A lot of stress and a little luck. What are you doing?"

"Making the world a much, _much_ better place than it has been for the last forty years or so. I'm doing what has to be done to keep this man from plaguing the world when your son gets older."

When Lois spoke, she sounded closed than she had been before. "Chloe, this isn't the way to do that."

"This is the best way to do it, Lois. He ruined my life, not to mention the lives of countless others over the years, and if he doesn't die it will never stop. I can't just stand by and watch him keep trying to lord over the city while screwing with the people so much that they can't even see how evil he is."

"Perhaps what the other people see is what actually is true, Chloe," Lex said. "Plus, how am I responsible for ruining your life? We are each responsible for our own lives, and any misery you feel is a direct result of your own actions."

"My own actions? You were kidnapping the children of meteor infected people and experimenting on them! All I did was expose your operation for the direct violation of human rights and decencies it was and somehow I end up getting screwed over. Those would be _your_actions, Lex."

"Chloe, we have the proof of it."

"Proof of what, Lo?"

"Proof that Lex's lab did exist. We have time stamped video that we got from one of the scientists that worked there. One that Lex recently tried to kill. He did kill the two other main scientists that worked on the project, Aaron Davis and Marianne Stone."

Chloe looked down at the ground for a second before looking back up at Lex. "Aaron is dead?"

"He was killed outside his cabin in Oregon. Executed. Two bullets to the chest and one to the head."

"Oregon?" Chloe tried to think of when she'd last heard Lois say something about Oregon. "Wait, was he the source in Oregon you had to ditch me for months ago?"

"Yes. He was willing to come forward, and pointed us in the direction of Hewlett, who pointed us to Stone." Lois was standing beside her now. "Stone is the one who made the recording, and Hewlett recovered it from the charred remains of her house. They think that it's arson that killed her, Chloe. Pair that with what happened to Davis and the attempt against Hewlett, it all points back to Lex, and now we have evidence. We can put him away, Chlo."

Chloe looked at Lois, who smiled at her. "You don't need to do this, Chloe. You don't need to become something just as bad as Lex to beat him. We're better than that. Clark and I did this investigation to help you get your life back, so that you can live again."

Smiling, Chloe looked back to Lex, who had stood up again. Frowning, she thought about what Lois had said. "What about the people after me, Lois? The others that get in the way won't have you as a cousin to help them? He can tie up any resulting court case for years with his army of lawyers and just go on ruining lives."

A glint of light shined off of something in Lex's right hand that was almost totally behind his leg. Not letting on that she'd seen, she spoke to Lois. "It' too risky, Lo. He shouldn't be allowed to keep living."

"You're not judge, jury and executioner, Chloe. Whether he lives or dies isn't your decision."

"Nor should it be." Chloe took a step toward Lex as he spoke. "While I appreciate this special familial nonsense, and I'm touched you don't think I should die, Lois, but if you could do this elsewhere it would be preferable."

"Shut the hell up, Lex!"

"Please, Chloe, this has gone on long enough. You don't have it in you to shoot somebody. You're _you._ I very much doubt that you would even use that gun."

Taking aim, Chloe pulled the trigger. A second later a cry of pain came from Lex and he stumbled backwards. There was a thump as something dropped to the ground, and looking down, Chloe saw that it was a gun. Walking over, she picked it up. After a quick inspection of the weapon, she backed up to where she'd been and held his gun in her left hand. He looked at her, his eyes full of venom as he clutched a hand to his arm.

"Chloe!"

Looking back at Lois, Chloe held out her own gun for her cousin to take. When she didn't, Chloe just stuffed it into her bag and switched Lex's gun to her right hand. "Killing Lex with his own gun. I like it."

"Chloe, I know you're angry, and I know that you blame Lex for everything that's happened to you, but this has to stop! You shot him! As much as we loathe him, he's still a human being, with all the rights to NOT get shot by somebody!"

"I DON'T CARE!" Taking a second, Chloe calmed herself down a little bit. "Do you think I'm at a point where I want to bother with his rights? This world is better off without him!"

"And what about you? You're going to go to jail! If you kill him, you'll be arrested and very likely get sentenced to die!"

"So? What the hell do I have to live for? I'm so far gone that I'm here, pointing a gun at a bleeding Lex after having already shot him once. I thought that there was a good chance I could die tonight, Lois, and yet I still came. My life isn't worth living."

"Bullshit!"

"Bullshit? You've had a front row seat for the pitifulness of my life. I have nobody to go home to after this. I don't have a job, and with Lex alive I'll never have one for long before I get fired. I'm a penniless, virtually unemployable and loveless lump. I'll be living in your basement _forever_."

"You live in her basement? How unpleasant that must be."

Chloe looked over at Lex, who was leaning against the window. "Please keep talking, Lex, and hasten your death."

He glared at her but shut his mouth, and she looked back to Lois. "I have nothing, Lo. All I feel is anger. That's it. Death is a gift at this point."

"What about me, Chloe?" Lois sounded like she was crying, which was something Chloe didn't think she wanted to see. "What about Clark? And Jacob? My son needs you in his life. You're his aunt Chloe! He wouldn't even exist if it weren't for you!"

"And I'm sure that one day I'll be his crazy aunt Chloe because of this, Lois."

"Do you want him to think that?"

"I don't care, Lois. Everybody has family issues, and I'll just have to be his."

---

Landing in the parking garage, Clark spotted the cars, unmoved from where they'd been when he'd left. Looking around, he pulled out his cell to see if Lois had left him a message. Seeing that he had a text message, he opened it up. It said LexCorp. Confusion colored his face. LexCorp? Was that where'd she gone? But why... would Chloe have gone after Lex?

Jogging out of the garage, he was greeted with LexCorp dominating the skyline. Rolling his eyes, he wend back into the garage, switched into his costume and took off.

---

"You don't have to do this, Chloe. Just give me your bag and Lex's gun."

Chloe smiled back at Lois for a second before looking at Lex again. "I love you, Lois, and Clark. I love your son, too. You guys don't deserved to be burdened with me anymore, so I'm just doing one last thing before I unburden you." Swallowing, Chloe felt a tear trail down her cheek. "Don't let Jacob find out about all this too young, all right? And tell him that I love him, forever."

Before her cousin could answer, Chloe aimed at Lex's chest and fired twice.

---

Hearing the gunshots come from where he knew Lex's office was, Clark picked up his speed, ramming through the glass. He spotted the bullets flying at Lex through the shattering glass, and stopped in front of his one time friend, hoping to spare him from an unjust death as much as spare Chloe the act of murder.

Reaching for the bullets, he all of a sudden started to feel sick.

---

As soon as she fired, Clark appeared before her, standing between her and Lex. Where she expected a look of concern on his face, though, she got a pale, ashen face. She looked down at his body and noticed blood seeping out of his chest from two holes.

Her eyes widening with panic, Chloe looked up at Clark's face and for a second, he stared back at her. She could see the pain radiating from his eyes. He coughed, a little blood bubbling out of his mouth.

Then he collapsed.


	16. Section 3: Lost & Found Chapter 4

---- Chapter 4: E Re Nata

Eyes wide, Chloe couldn't blink as she watched Clark collapse onto the ground. Her mouth slightly open, she simply stared at the sight of Clark unconscious on the floor, blood quickly pooling beneath him. She sucked in some air as she saw something move out of the corner of her eye, but she couldn't make herself look away from him.

Wanting to move, her body seemed unable to respond to her mind's desperate requests to help him. The only motion she managed was the gun falling out of her hands and onto the floor, a quiet thump she couldn't pay attention to.

---

Tears stinging her eyes as Clark tumbled to the ground, Lois saw Lex making a move towards Chloe. Running past her cousin, she dove over her fallen husband and tackled Lex. They tumbled to the ground, Lois landing on top of him. Without thought Lois pulled back her hand, already balled into a fist, and punched Lex across the jaw twice. Seeing his head loll to the side as she prepared to punch him a third time, she stopped herself and got up.

She took a few steps back to Clark, kneeling next to him. He looked over at her weakly, blood still trickling from his mouth. It looked like he attempted to smile for a second before his face contorted with pain once again.

Lois looked up at Chloe, who was still just standing there and staring in shock. "Chloe!"

---

She'd have sworn she heard he name called, but it didn't register in her mind. How had she shot him? He was invulnerable. It couldn't be done with the simple lead of a bullet. How? It didn't make any sense! He shouldn't be there on the ground, his life oozing out of him. He should be standing there, having crushed the bullets and telling her that murder was never the answer.

When she heard her name again, Chloe blinked, but could still only focus on Clark's body. This had to be some sort of dream. Even with the way things in her life went now, this couldn't have happened. She couldn't have shot Clark.

---

Getting up, Lois moved over in front of Chloe and grasped her by the arms, shaking her a couple times until her eyes finally focused on her face instead of on Clark. "Chloe, you have to focus! Come on! Are you with me?"

Teary eyes blinked a couple times and she nodded. "Y-Yeah, I-I'm fine."

Lois nodded. "Good. You have to heal Clark."

Chloe's eyes narrowed. "What?"

"Your meteor power, Chloe. You need to heal him with your meteor power."

---

Taking a moment to breathe, Chloe closed her still open mouth and nodded once more, her brain finally kicking into gear. "Ok, yeah. You, um, you need to dig the bullets out of him." Wiping away a tear, Chloe ran a hand back through her hair. "I don't think healing him would do any good with them in there, so you do that."

"Why can't you help me?"

"Lex has a personal video system in here that's only accessible from his computer. I'm going to destroy it."

Lois looked at her for a second before nodding her ascent and moving back to Clark. Chloe heard her murmur something to him before there was a cry of pain, causing Chloe to wince and shrink away for a second. Gathering herself again, she picked up the gun and walked over to Lex's computer. Without hesitation, she fired off the rest of the clip into the computer, riddling it with holes. If that didn't do the trick, it would take Clark's powers to finish it. She tossed the empty gun on the desk.

Turning back to face Lois and Clark, she saw her cousin working her fingers around in one of the holes in Clark's chest. She pulled out a bullet and looked at it for a second. "Kryptonite. Lex lines his bullets with kryptonite, the bastard."

Chloe kneeled down on the other side of Clark, looking at Lois. "Is that both of them?" When Lois nodded, Chloe took a deep breath and readied herself for what was to come. "You're going to have to carry me out of here."

"I know. Clark will be able to carry us both."

"I'm so sorry, Lois." Chloe swallowed and shook her head. "Will you tell him that for me?"

"You can tell him yourself, when you recover."

Nodding, Chloe sucked in one last deep breath and focused her mind at the task at hand.

---

Lois rose up and took a step back as a glow enveloped Clark and Chloe. It brightened with each second and Lois shielded her eyes as it flashed for a long second before the room returned to normal lighting. Looking down, Chloe was collapsed in a heap on top of Clark, whose eyes were blinking open.

Blinking back tears, Lois moved back to where she'd been by his side, smiling as she cupped his face in her hands. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah," he breathed. He sat up, gently cradling Chloe's body against his chest. "Did she heal me?" Lois nodded and leaned forward, kissing him gently and resting her forehead against his. "Where's the kryptonite that weakened me?"

"It was lining the bullets. It wasn't a lot, but it as enough to make the bullets deadly to you. Keep that in mind next time you're around here."

"I will. Is Lex ok?"

"Yeah, but he's going to wake up with a sore jaw tomorrow. He was trying to take advantage of the situation so I had to tackle him and knock him out."

Clark stood up, holding Chloe's limp form in his arms. Lois got up and stood next to him. "We should take her home. How long do you think it will take for her to recover from this?"

"I don't know. There's never been a uniform time for her recovery from the serious injuries she's healed." Looking around, she found Lex's gun on the desk. Grabbing it, she walked over and stuffed it from the messenger bag that was barely hanging from Chloe's shoulder. Taking it off her cousin, she draped it over herself. "Fly her home. I'm going to drive my car home."

"Why don't you..."

She cut him off. "I need the drive home to think, Clark. It's not a long drive, but hopefully it'll help me get some things straight in my head."

"All right. Be safe."

As he flew off, Lois moved to leave but caught sight of the unconscious Lex in her peripheral vision. Frowning, she looked at him a moment and noticed that his arm was still bleeding. She pulled the bag around in front of her and opened it, hoping to find something to staunch the flow. The only thing that could be construed as useful was the duct tape. She pulled it out and took a knee next to him.

Sticking an end of the tape over the wound, Lois lifted his arm and started wrapping it tightly around the bleeding area. After six or seven circles, she tore the tape and got the other end stuck to the rest of it. Stuffing the roll back in the bag, she walked out of his office. With nobody around, she made her way to the elevator and pushed the button. It opened a minute later, and after a couple stops, she was on the ground floor and walking out of the building through the main doors.

Running a hand through her hair, Lois kept a casual pace as she made her way along the sidewalk and across the intersections. She was soon making her way into the parking garage and stepping into her car. She tossed he bag in the passenger seat and stared straight ahead for a moment. Feeling tears start to stream down her face, she couldn't hold back the sobs that tore through her.

Hands clutching at the back of her head, Lois rocked back and forth as she let the tears flow, not really having any choice in the matter.

Chloe had wanted to die. She hadn't cared about her own life. She'd gone in there thinking that she was going to die, ready to kill Lex. Her cousin had been ready to commit murder. The sobs kept racking her body, Lois being unable to get what had just happened.

When she thought about seeing Clark appear there and his face pale as blood oozed down his body, fresh tears sprang to her eyes. She'd almost lost him. How much of her life was dependent on him being there, of what she would have lost if Chloe didn't have the ability to heal, was abundantly clear to her now. Not having Clark in her life was one of the scariest things she'd ever had to face.

A few minutes later, after copious amounts of tears, Lois finally pulled herself together enough to sit up straight and start the car. Taking a tremulous breath in, she looked at herself in the rearview mirror and felt like she could almost laugh. She looked awful. Rubbing at her eyes a moment, she sighed and backed out of the parking spot and drove out of the garage.

Letting her eyes focus on the road, Lois tried to figure out what they were going to do about Chloe. It was abundantly clear that if she took the hands off approach now, bad things could happen. Chloe was going to be guilt ridden when she woke up. She'd shot Clark. It was going to tear her up inside.

In a way, Lois was grateful that Clark had arrived there to get shot by Chloe. As much as it had hurt to see Clark like that, and the thought of it brought tears to her eyes, she didn't want Chloe to have to live with blood on her hands. She'd shot Lex in the arm, which was something that she was going to have to deal with at some point, and Lois hoped that Chloe would at least feel guilty about that.

Would she, though? Would her cousin be sorry about anything that happened to Lex? Would she simply laugh about it now? Lois sniffled a bit as she wondered if anything was left of the Chloe she'd grown up knowing, the bright eyed girl curious about life's unexplainable events. All she ever saw now was a woman torn down by life, feeling that she had nothing left and a life not worth living anymore.

Blinking, Lois found herself closer to home than she expected. Turning into the neighborhood, Lois did her best to make her brain relax as she drove slowly through the streets, finally pulling into the driveway of their house.

Releasing a breath she didn't know she was holding, Lois got out of the car, pulling the bag with her. She closed the car door with her foot and walked up to the house, heading inside. Heading down into the basement, she found Clark sitting on the couch, leaning forward with his face resting in his hands. Steeling herself, Lois walked down and sat down next to him, running a hand over his back.

"Are you all right?"

He took a long breath in before looking over at her, smiling softly. "Yeah. I was just thinking about everything that happened tonight. I was only there for the tail end, and it was pretty intense. I'd show you the evidence, but I am happily without."

Lois sighed and rested her head on Clark's shoulder. "I don't know that I've ever been that scared before. You almost died. I almost lost you..." She trailed off as she felt the tears start again, and Clark turned and wrapped her in a hug. A few tears got free, but nothing close to what she'd done in the car. His arms felt like a really good, safe place to be, though.

"You didn't lose me, Lo. You saw me in a mind numbing amount of pain, yes, but I didn't die. You'll have to work a whole lot harder than that to get rid of me."

Lois adjusted her position a bit so that she was lying down, her head resting on his leg. "You're lucky that I'm feeling lazy, Smallville, not too mention that you're comfy."

"Good to know." There was a pause, then he spoke again. "As much as I would like to just sit here with you, I'm curious as to what happened before I got there."

Lois closed her eyes, covering her face with her hands for a moment before removing them. "The short version is I walked into Lex's office, where I found Chloe with a gun pulled on Lex. There was talk, where I told Chloe about our findings, then she shot Lex in the arm and he dropped a gun that I hadn't seen. She grabbed that gun, putting the other in her bag, and after confessing she feels her life is no longer worth living shot at Lex. The rest you were a part of."

Clark gently ran a hand through her hair a couple times, and Lois let her eyes slide shut as he did so once more. "She feels that her life is no longer worth living?"

"She thought that if she killed Lex and went to jail for it she'd be unburdening us. She didn't give me a chance to refute that thought because that was right before everything went to hell."

"How can we help her?"

"I think she needs more than we can offer, Smallville."

---

Gasping in a deep breath, Chloe's eyes flew open. Sitting up, she looked around and found herself in her room, on her bed. Swallowing, she looked at the clock on her bedside table, and found that it was not long after ten in the morning. Rubbing at her eyes, she cracked her neck and swung her legs off the side of the bed.

Sitting there, the events that had played out ran through her mind. Grimacing as the image of a bloody Clark popped into her mind, Chloe let her head drp and her chin rest against her chest. Scratching at an ear, she chewed on her lip for a moment before standing up.

Walking to the bathroom, Chloe stripped off her clothes as she started the shower. Waiting a moment for the water to heat up and bouncing on the balls of her feet a bit to keep them from freezing on the cold floor, she got in the shower and let the water pour over her face. She stood there a moment, the soon scalding water flowing over her, but she didn't move. Standing there, she let the water burn her, making herself feel something other than self loathing for what she'd done.

Finally taking a step back a moment later when she couldn't take the heat anymore, Chloe adjusted the water temperature and proceeded to take a shower, trying to wash the memories of shooting Lex from her mind. She'd actually shot him. How could she do that? She'd wanted to kill him, and had tried to, nearly killing Clark instead. How could she have let herself do something like that?

She'd never thought that she'd be capable of killing another person, not in cold blood. When it came to fighting for her life, well, if the person trying to kill her ended up dead that was unfortunate. But trying to take justice into her own hands, trying to end Lex's vile life? How had it come to that? How had she let herself get there?

Finished with her shower, Chloe got out and dried herself off before wrapping up in the towel and walking to her room. Getting dressed, she thought about what she had to do. She needed help. She knew that now, especially considering that she still wanted Lex dead. She wanted to see him die and...

Stopping her thoughts, Chloe pulled on a sweater and pulled her hair out from inside it. Rubbing the spot between her eyes, she knew that she had to find a way to stop being so angry. Well, considering the fact that she'd shot Lex in the arm last night and was very likely to be arrested sometime soon, she might get a court mandated therapy session every week.

Composing herself for what was to come, Chloe walked out of her room and through the basement to the stairs, heading up to get some food and probably yelled at by Lois. As she opened the door, she was greeted by the sound of nothing going on. Closing the door behind her, she walked through the bottom floor of the house, finding nobody there. Going to the stairs, she stopped at the base. "Anybody up there?"

When she didn't get an answer, Chloe shrugged and walked into the kitchen. Grabbing a bagel from the bread box, she split it in half and tossed it in the toaster. While it toasted she walked over to the fridge and pulled out the apple juice, pouring herself a glass. She took a sip of that and looked over as the bagel popped up. Grabbing a plate, she tossed each half on it before walking into the living room.

Placing everything on the coffee table, she took a bite of the bagel before slouching back into the couch. She decided that when the police did come for her, she wasn't going to fight any of the charges. She was guilty of them all; what would the point be?

This was all assuming that Lex actually reported her. He was an awful excuse for a human being, but he was rarely predictable. He was as likely to report getting shot as he was to just forget about it until two years down the line and try to take her out with a hitman that would never be traced to him, if he was even found.

Chloe heard the front door open, along with the sound of a laughing baby. Readying herself for what was to come, she leaned back a little and looked towards the front door, she spotted Lois and Clark walking towards her, Lois playing with Jacob as they got into the living room. "Hey, guys."

Both Lois and Clark seemed to notice her for the first time. Clark smiled at her. "Morning, Chloe. How are you feeling?"

She shrugged. "Fine. No ill effects. You?"

"The same." He placed a hand on her shoulder, smiling at her before he took Jacob from Lois and headed upstairs.

Gulping, Chloe looked away from her cousin, not able to meet her eyes. Grabbing her bagel, she tore off a piece and stuffed it into her mouth, swallowing before taking a long drink of her apple juice.

"How are you, Chlo? Really?"

"I tried to kill somebody last night Lo, and nearly killed my oldest friend. Considering all that, I think the fact that I'm not curled into a ball of guilt is pretty good. Of course, it could also be a sign that I'm lacking guilt I should probably feel."

Lois sat down beside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, gently pulling her close. "I love you, Chloe. Nothing will ever change that. You're not a burden to us, nor will you ever be. Your life is worth living. You have me; how can you not want to stick around for it?"

Chloe smiled through the tears she felt forming. "I must have been crazy to think a life with you in it wasn't worth living. Unfortunately, that hasn't changed. My life has nothing in it. I don't have the job I love anymore, or even a job I hate to fall back on. I don't have a family to fall back on for comfort or support."

"You have us, Chloe."

"I know, and I love you even more for it, but you know what I mean. My dream is gone and the future I thought I would have a mere six and a half months ago is a big gaping hole now. Were it actually real, I think I'd take the opportunity to jump into said hole."

"I hate to say this, Chlo, but you need more help than I can give you."

Chloe pulled away from Lois' arm that was around her shoulders and raised an eyebrow. "Lois Lane admitting defeat? Wow, I really must be a lost cause."

"Not a lost cause, just somebody in need of help that I don't have the experience to provide."

Chloe grabbed her bagel and sat back, taking a large bite. She spoke around it. "This all may be moot, you know. Lex may be talking to the cops right now."

"He hasn't yet."

Chloe looked over at Lois. "How do you know that?"

"Clark and I have a contact high up in the Metropolis P.D. that told us he would let us know if a call comes in from Lex. So far, nothing."

"All right," Chloe breathed. "What do you have planned to help me?"

"Well, we have this friend in Gotham that we think can help you with your anger, and what you do with it."

"What's his name?"

"Bruce Wayne."


	17. Section 3: Lost & Found Chapter 5

---- Chapter Five: Grant Us Peace

Hefting her bag up on her shoulder a little more solidly, Chloe walked out of the jetway and into the Metropolis airport. Clark had offered to fly her back from Gotham, but she'd declined, wanting to do it the old fashioned way.

As she was swallowed into the groups of people making their way towards the front of the airport, she let her eyes run over all the faces, noting the direction people were looking and how they held themselves. She smiled as she caught the reunion of two lovers out of the corner of her eye, and had to stop walking quickly when a little girl ran out in front of her and stopped, casting a curious glance up at her.

Chloe smiled down at her. "Hi there."

After staring with wide eyes for a moment, the little girl ran off in the direction she'd come from. Chloe rolled her eyes and started walking again. "Apparently barely any human contact for years on end hasn't made me any more endearing to children," she mumbled.

Scratching at her scalp for a second as she walked, she once again hefted her bag up onto her shoulder and went back to letting her eyes run over all the faces in the crowd. It had become habit, despite the fact that this was really the first large crowd of people she'd been in since she'd left Metropolis over three years ago.

The fact that Bruce had arranged for her to return four years to the day after she'd lost her job at the Daily Planet was hardly lost on her. She'd yet to mark the anniversary with anything more than a couple depressing thoughts that she dismissed after a few minutes, but apparently her mentor, counselor, or whatever Bruce had been to her was intent on seeing her confront the annoying date. She didn't know if this actually counted as confronting it so much as just simply returning to the scene of the crime.

Passing through a revolving door, Chloe walked along the baggage carousels until she spotted the one that had her flight info on the screen above it. Looking around, she walked back a few paces and rested her back against the wall, letting her eyes close with a deep breath. The bag on her shoulder slipped to the ground, and Chloe smiled a bit as a familiar scent hit her nostrils. Opening her eyes again, she watched as a woman with long blonde hair passed her, her perfume the scent Lois had once worn.

Lois. They'd talked frequently for the first five or six months of her time in Gotham, but once she'd started traveling, spending time in some of the places Bruce had recommended for training, they'd lost touch. She had returned to Gotham intermittently, but Bruce would just send her out again, hardly granting her time to take a shower before she was on her way to somewhere remote.

By the time the previous Christmas had passed, she hadn't talked to her cousin in about two and a half years. Now, it was getting towards three. It was by far the longest they'd gone without talking to each other.

Sighing, Chloe pushed that thought out of her head. She didn't feel nervous about going and seeing Lois, Clark and Jacob for the first time since the day after her low point, but she just hoped that they could see her with new eyes instead of seeing the woman she'd been then.

As the carousel began to spin, Chloe lifted her bag up and walked back to it, standing by the side as bags began to spill onto it. Watching black suitcase after black suitcase pass her by for what felt like hours, she finally leaned over and grabbed the duffel holding her clothes, many of which she hadn't worn in almost as long as it had been since she'd seen her family. When she'd traveled, she'd traveled lightly. The bag on her shoulder had been all she'd needed most places, and more than she needed in a few.

Walking along the windowed front of the airport, Chloe caught a glimpse of herself mirrored in the glass. Her hair was short again, and stuck out in small spikes of sorts, though not through any conscious styling choices. Her body wasn't as soft as it had been, her curves toned down and replaced by lean muscle. Would her clothes in her duffel even fit anymore? She'd never been all that muscular prior to leaving, and while she wasn't rippling now, she was sometimes caught off guard by how trim her body was.

The first time she'd seen her reflection, truly seen what her whole body had looked like after only catching glimpses of her face for over a year, had been a shock. The image that she'd been used to and grown to love through her life was gone, replaced by something the rigors of her life had demanded.

Walking outside, Chloe smiled as the sun hit her face and felt her clothes ripple with the wind. It felt good to be outside now, after having spent the majority of previous years outside. When she had first found it odd to be inside for long amounts of time, she'd realized just how much her life had changed. Before that, spending as much time outside as she had seemed something she would never do.

Waking down a row of taxi's, she declined a brochure about the city from an airport worker and walked to the first unoccupied cab. With a quick greeting to the driver as he took her bags, Chloe gave him the address of the apartment downtown that Bruce had purchased for her. She'd attempted to talk him out of it, but he wouldn't budge. When she'd appealed to Diana for help, she'd just sided with him. Apparently being in love with Bruce counted for more than female unity these days.

Ruffling her hair a bit as she got into the backseat of the cab, Chloe buckled her seatbelt and told the driver where to go once more as he got the car going. A couple minutes later she could see the city in the distance, and swallowed as she knew what she was going to have to face.

---

"We have a cake, right? This seems like a cake kind of situation, though I don't know what we could possibly write on top of it. 'Welcome back from the near three and a half years away from Metropolis I forced on you!' That seems a little long for a cake, unless we were to get a really big cake."

Lois stopped talking as she wiped a hand down her face, knowing that she was rambling. She was going to see her cousin, one of the people dearest to her, for the first time since that fateful night in December 2019. Now that it was April of 2023, her life had changed, though people told her that she hadn't. Did people know when they had changed, or did they just not notice it and think that whatever happened was the norm?

Shaking those kinds of thoughts out of her head, she made her way along the table of food until she spotted the large cake at the end, adorned with the words 'Welcome Home!' instead of her much less succinct cake-top greeting. Nodding her head in approval, the rubbed her neck for a moment, attempting to alleviate some of the tension in it she wished wasn't there.

She wanted this to feel natural, like she was greeting somebody that was coming home from military service with happiness and rejoicing. She didn't know what she was going to see, though. Bruce had only said that Chloe was all right, and that it was time for her to come home. Lois really hadn't seen why her cousin had needed to be gone so long, but Bruce had told her that if she was going to let him help Chloe, he was going to help her the way he had helped himself.

Of course, Bruce had never really become less angry about his parents murder. Lois knew that it shadowed him everyday. But when she and Clark had talked about what they could do to help her, and he'd floated the idea of letting Bruce help her with the anger like he'd helped himself, she'd thought it sounded like a good idea. She hoped that when she saw Chloe, it would be confirmed as a good idea.

"Daddy, is mommy ok?"

"Yeah buddy, she's just nervous."

Lois turned around and glared at Clark. "I'm not nervous. I'm... anxious."

He raised an eyebrow. "You look nervous." Clark looked down at Jacob, who was standing next to him. "Do you think she looks nervous?"

Jacob looked up at him, nodding. "I think she looks nervous." He looked back at her. "Why are you nervous, mommy?"

Rolling her eyes, Lois crossed her arms and glowered at a wall. "I am NOT nervous, you two. If Cassidy were down here, she'd agree with me."

"She's two, Lo, and only leaves your side when she's sleeping. Were it not currently nap time she'd either be standing at your side with Mr. Whiskers or settled on your hip, which is more or less her favorite place in the world. One of these days you're going to have to limit hip time."

Los scoffed at him. "She's my daughter, Smallville! I'm not going to tell her she can't spend some quality time close to me. Plus, more talk like that and there will most certainly be some limiting of time, but it won't be her hip to hip contact with me that goes down."

Clark scowled at her a moment, which caused Lois to grin and stick her tongue out at him good-naturedly. When there was a knock at the door, Clark picked up Jacob and took him with him to answer the door to the apartment while Lois got back to going over everything to make sure that it was all in good order where it should be.

When Clark and Jacob got back they were accompanied by Lucy, Jimmy and Bridget. Their little girl was sitting on Jimmy's shoulders, but Lois pulled her down into a hug before handing her back and getting Lucy tangled up in a quick hug. "How are you guys?"

Lucy answered. "Good. Great, actually, now that we're here. This place is amazing! There's only one other apartment up here."

Lois looked around at the giant place for a moment, which was more of a penthouse than a plain old apartment. Bruce certainly hadn't spared any expense when he'd purchased and furnished the place for Chloe. Apparently since he'd come home to loads of money and a giant home, he thought she should too. This was definitely better than coming home to live in their basement.

"Yeah, Chloe caught a break and got a good deal on this place when she was arranging her return."

"Did she also become independently wealthy while she was out in the world, traveling and finding herself, or whatever it was she was doing?"

Lois shrugged, knowing she would have to lie. "Appears that way. I still haven't talked to her. A mutual friend in Gotham is who alerted us to the fact that she was coming home and wanted to see us. We were just as surprised as you are at the quality of this place."

"Yeah, well, I'm just eager to see her. I still wish she would have at least taken the time to say goodbye in person instead of just giving us a quick call from the airport. Would she have even done that if you hadn't been there with her?"

Lois grabbed a chip out of a bowl and popped it into her mouth. "I don't know. Don't hold it against her, though. She was having a hard time with things back then and needed to get away. Obviously we had no idea it would be near to three and a half years later when we saw her again, but if it's what she needed that much time to feel better, then I'm all right with it."

Lois looked down when there was a tug at her jeans, and smiled when she saw a sleepy Cassidy rubbing at an eye with her other hand, her stuffed cat Mr. Whiskers tucked into the crook of her arm. Lois kneeled down and ran a hand through her daughter's messy hair. "Hey there, sleepyhead. You awake now?"

Cassidy nodded and wrapped the previously tugging hang around her neck. Lois wrapped an arm around her daughter in turn, and lifter her up as she stood. Cassidy laid her head against Lois's shoulder, rubbing against it a couple times. "Do you want to say hi to your aunt Lucy and uncle Jimmy?"

A quick shake of the head was the only answer she got, and Lois shrugged at Lucy. "You know how it goes."

"I do. Plus, Lane's are never good with the rising and not being grumpy, aside from dad. Saying it that way, maybe it's not a Lane thing so much as something we got from mom." Lucy nodded a couple times before wandering off to get something to drink, and everybody else had disappeared while they were talking so Lois got Cassidy resting on her hip while she gave things the once over for the fifteenth time.

Looking down at Cassidy, Lois wondered what Chloe would think of her daughter. She couldn't believe that the two had never met. Hell, Jacob didn't remember her because he'd been so young. Neither of her children knew Chloe, and that was just unfathomable to her. She'd never imagined that something like that could happen.

Of course, she'd never imagined what had transpired at the end of 2019 could happen, so life was just liked to throw improbabilities at her. The fact that she was married and had two kids with somebody born on another planet was proof of that.

Rubbing a hand over Cassidy's back, Lois decided to go over things one last time. Not because she was nervous. Maybe because she was anxious.

---

Handing the taxi driver a fifty, Chloe told him to keep the change and smiled when he tipped his hat at her. She hadn't thought that people actually tipped their hats anymore, but apparently she'd been incorrect. Watching the taxi merge into traffic, she took a deep breath in and released it a second later before picking up her duffel and slinging her other bag over her shoulder.

Walking into the building, a doorman let her in without a question, which she figured was Bruce's doing. She smiled at him as she walked by, and made her way to the elevator at the end of the entry foyer. Waiting a moment, she looked around and inspected her new surroundings until she heard the ding of the elevator greet her.

Letting a couple people exit, Chloe walked in and dropped her duffel as she pushed the button for the top floor. Rolling her shoulders a bit, she watched as he floor numbers flashed by until the elevator stopped. Hoisting up her duffel once more, she walked out of the elevator and made her way along the hallway.

Frowning, she glanced at the first door she passed, which was oddly far away for a first door, and when it wasn't the number she'd been told was hers she kept walking. A little ways further she finally got to the door she'd been looking for, on the opposite side of the hallway. Glancing further down, she noticed that there were no other doors. How big a place had Bruce gotten her?

Testing the door, she found it unlocked. Not surprising; Diana had told her that Bruce had told Lois and Clark she was coming back. She assumed that he was going to tell her, but he'd never said anything about it. Maybe Diana had told him and he hadn't bothered. The day Bruce planned a surprise party was the day she questioned whether the world had started spinning clockwise. Secretive as he was, he'd always been honest with her.

After a long breath to keep the nerves down, she walked into the apartment and let her bags down onto the floor softly. Rubbing at her neck as she closed the door softly, she made her way into the main part of the place. As soon as she saw what awaited her, she couldn't help gut gape at the size of the place. Why the hell had Bruce gotten her such a monstrous apartment? Talk about a shock to the system; after living such a Spartan life during her travels, this was going to be extremely different.

Expecting a greeting as she walked into the living room, she found it empty with a big table of food at the other end. Not sure what to make of all this, she made her way across the room and inspected all the food. Gabbing a piece of celery, she took a bite as he wandered along the length, glancing at each food as it sat on a plate or in a bowl. When she came to the large cake at the end, she dipped her finger in the icing and licked it off, smiling as she tasted it.

Hearing light footsteps coming from her left, Chloe glanced over and saw a little boy running into the room. He stopped when he noticed her, tilting his head a bit as she pulled her finger out of her mouth.

"Who are you?"

Chloe swallowed and smiled. "I'm Chloe, who are you?"

"Jacob."

Eyes going wide, Chloe stared for a second before realizing that she doing just that. He was huge! He was what, four years old now? She didn't have a clue as to if he was big for his age, but seeing him now compared to the size he'd been... it was crazy. "Wow, uh, hi. I haven't seen you in a long time."

"We've met before?"

"Well yeah. I knew you when you were a baby. In fact, I was there the day you were born. We knew each other pretty well until you were one."

He walked a little closer to her, and she took a second to analyze his features. Clark's eyes, Lois's mouth and nose... he was a good mix of the two.

"I don't remember you."

Chloe sighed and got down on her knee's, smiling at him. "I know. I've been traveling for a while, and ths is the first time I've been home in Metropolis for over three years."

"That's a long time!"

"Too long," Chloe said. "May I have a hug? I know you probably aren't supposed to hug strangers, so if you don't want to that's ok."

When he didn't move, Chloe nodded and stood up. "That's depressing," she said to herself. She'd never thought that she'd a stranger to a little boy she'd once known and taken care of like he was her own. "So, Jacob, where are your mom and dad?"

"In the kitchen."

"You want to come with me to say hi to them?"

He nodded and took off at a run in the direction from whence he'd come. Chloe followed at a much slower pace, running a hand through her hair before once before she thought about just how short it was. Two years it had been short and she still forgot about it sometimes. Finding a swinging door her only barrier between her and family, she pushed past it.

She was greeted by an empty room.

Looking around, she found that Jacob was nowhere to be found , nor were his parents. Scratching her head, she saw that there was another door out and used it, walking out of the kitchen and back towards the living room. Once she got there, she found herself staring at the backs of four adults a three children.

"Hey, guys."

---

Spinning around, Lois spotted Chloe and had to flex her jaw to keep her mouth from falling open. Her cousin looked completely different. The hair, her face and body... all completely different. It didn't look bad on her, but compared to what she'd known for so many years it was a hell of a sight. When she noticed nobody else saying anything either, she made herself step forward and speak. She smiled and put Cassidy down on the floor.

"Chloe, hi. It's so great to see you!" Taking another couple steps forward, she pulled her cousin into a hug. She felt Chloe wrap her arms around her, and suddenly all the nervousness she'd been feeling oozed away and it was just her and Chloe again. She took a step back, leaving her hands on her. "How are you?"

Chloe smiled. "I'm all right. Good, even."

"How were your travels?"

Chloe shrugged and shook her head. "We can cover that later. Who's this beautiful girl standing next to you?"

"Oh!" Lois grinned and picked up Christina, settling her on her hip. "This is Cassidy Corinne Kent, your niece."

Chloe smiled softly, looking down at Cassidy. "Hi there."

Lois watched Cassidy look at Chloe a second before hugging herself a little tighter to her body. Lois shook her head and smiled at Chloe. "Sorry, she's pretty shy. She obviously takes after her father."

"Don't worry, Lo, kids have never been the most fond of me."

"Hey, Jacob loved you when he was a baby."

"Yeah, well, babies are a different matter. Most of the time, they can't run away from you. At the airport earlier, a kid ran out in front of me, I said hi and she took off. I think something about me says to kids 'Run away!'"

"Nonsense. I bet you got a hug out of Jacob earlier."

Chloe raised an eyebrow before grinning. "Nope. I asked him if he was supposed to hug strangers, and when I didn't get a hug I took that as the answer."

Lois frowned, not knowing what to say to that. Chloe walked past her a second later.

"Hey guys."

Lois turned back and watched the greetings, realizing that she'd been dominating the welcome home proceedings. She watched as Chloe got introduced to Bridget and hugged Jimmy and Lucy, and lastly got a big hug from Clark. Sighing happily, Lois was relieved to have her cousin home.

---

"After Japan, I spent about seven months in Nepal, four in China and a few in Thailand. After that, I flew back to Gotham, which was a week ago, and now I'm here."

"Wow," Lois said. Chloe watched her cousin as she lounged on the couch, a cup of coffee in her hands. It was good to know that some things never changed. "I'm impressed."

Chloe smiled and looked out the window, seeing some lit buildings a little ways off. Letting herself sit back into the couch a little more, she took a sip of her water before continuing. "The training was intense. Everything I did I had to do full out. I threw myself into it, but I didn't know if I was going to make it through at the beginning. As time passed and I didn't fall over dead, I found that I was stronger than I thought."

"Good, I'm glad."

"Me too. I needed to know it."

Lois turned her head and faced her. "I always knew it, Chlo."

Chuckling, Chloe took another sip of water. "I know. Unfortunately, being told that we have that strength inside us isn't that same as finding it for one's self. Bruce really knew what he was doing when he sent me where he did, and knew what it would force me to face."

"I wish you hadn't been gone so long, but I'm glad that you're all right. That's all I've wanted to know since we lost touch."

Chloe smiled through a sigh. "All right, enough about me. What've you and Clark been up to in the last three years and four months? You know, aside from making more offspring."

"Well, there is that one little thing. She was a surprise, but a good surprise. We weren't actively trying so much as we just stopped using birth control and whatever happened, happened."

"She's gorgeous, Lo."

Lois smiled. "Thank you. Like you saw earlier, she's a little shy. Jacob was never shy with people at her age, so I don't know if it's just her being two or her personality. Time will tell, I guess." After another sip of coffee, she continued. "Aside from children, we went to print with the article about how Lex had been testing on the children of meteor infected, which got him in serious trouble with all sorts of people. He's currently incarcerated, actually, on the second year of a thirteen year term."

"_Really_? Well, that's good news. Did anything ever come about as a result of the altercation he and I had?"

"Not that I know of. There was never anything reported to the police, and Clark and I checked out at all the hospitals a few days later to see if Lex had been in for treatment, but there wasn't anything conclusive."

Frowning, Chloe stared out the window a moment, and didn't turn towards Lois when she spoke. "What prison is Lex in, Lo?"

---

Sitting down, Chloe waited. A moment later, a guard led Lex to the chair across the window. He paused when he saw her, then sat down. He picked up the phone piece, and Chloe mirrored his action.

"Hello, Lex."

"Chloe."

"How's prison treating you?"

Lex shrugged. "As expected. You disappeared after our night together."

"It was necessary." Taking a deep breath, Chloe squared her shoulders. "I'm sorry."

"Is that so?"

Chloe nodded. "It is."

"All right then." Lex hung up his phone and stood up, walking away. Chloe watched as the guard trailed him before hanging up her phone and walking out of the visitation room.

---

"How's the adjustment going?"

Chloe smiled into her phone, rolling her eyes as she walked down the street. Glancing up as a streetlight turned on, she focused her eyes forward again. "It's going fine, Bruce. At heart, I've always been a city girl."

"I know. Once you get used to the quiet of the rural east, though, it can be more difficult to go back."

"I haven't had a problem yet. Granted, it's been all of twenty four hours since I got to the monstrosity that you called a regular apartment, so it may not all have hit me yet."

"Do you not like the place?"

"I like it just fine, but don't you think it's overkill? I've spent almost three years living in small rooms with a single window and a candle for light. Living someplace with more square footage than I care to estimate is almost as different a situation as looking myself in the mirror was for a while." Glancing back discretely, Chloe noticed a couple men following her. Making note of it, she continued her conversation. "I mean, I love the place and all the furnishings, but it just seems like overkill."

"If you like it, then it isn't overkill. Diana sends her best, by the way. She wanted to be here when I called but got called away."

"I understand. Tell her thank you for me."

"Why?"

"She warned me that people would be in my apartment when I got there."

The other end of the line was silent for a moment, and Chloe took the opportunity to check behind her again. Four men now. Apparently Lex did hold a grudge. Either that or she'd pissed somebody off by sleeping and eating.

"I thought it would be a good surprise."

"I know Bruce, and I appreciate the sentiment. It was a little tense at first, and it kind of sucked when Cassidy was too shy to say hello, but overall it was good. It felt like I had been gone a few days instead of a few years with Lois, and you have no idea how thankful for that I am." Catching a reflection of the four men, she saw that she needed to wrap things up. "Look, I'm going to let you go. I'll talk to you soon, all right?"

"All right, Chloe. Goodbye."

"Bye."

She snapped her phone shut and stuffed it in a pocket. Shaking her head, she turned into an alley between buildings and walked a little ways in. Taking a deep breath, she turned around when she heard footsteps following her. The four men she'd seen had followed her in. None were huge, but none of them could pass for small, either.

"May I help you?"

She didn't get a word from any of them. Instead, they spread out and surrounded her, all only a few paces away, eyeing her like cats surrounding a mouse.

Before they could get set, though, she charged the one nearest the alley entrance, landing a quick punch to his jaw. Turning, she ducked under a punch and brought a knee up into his groin. Taking a step backwards, she threw her elbow back and felt it collide with a face before she ducked down again and took out the legs of the last man.

The first man charged her and Chloe dodged a couple punches before landing a kick to his midsection and following up with an elbow to the back of his head as he doubled over. Turning, she was tackled by one of the men before she could land a punch. Rolling on the ground, she landed below the man but quick punched him in the throat hard enough to stun him but not totally cut off his air.

Pushing him off, she got up in time to sidestep a kick And land one of her own to the stomach and a punch to the temple, knocking the guy out.

As suddenly as it had started, Chloe found herself surrounded by four bodies on the ground. Taking deep breaths, she ruffled her hair a bit as she walked out of the alley. She knew that those were probably just the first of many to come.

---

Chloe smiled as she opened her door, seeing Lois, Clark and the kids there to greet her. "Evening, guys."

"How goes the transition to urban life, Chlo?"

Chloe moved out of the way so they could all walk into the apartment, and closed the door as she followed them inside. Thrusting her hands in her pockets, she watched as Lois put Cassidy down and let her run. Jacob ran after her, and Chloe could tell that he was already protective of her.

Shaking her head, she smiled and joined Lois and Clark as they sat and watched the kids. "The transition goes well, Lo. It's almost like I never left, except for everything that's changed and whatnot."

"Yeah, things changing does make it harder to feel like you never left." Lois looked over at Clark. "Will you go see if Cassidy is hungry?"

He nodded, but rolled his eyes. "You're so lucky you have a husband that doesn't mind doing things."

Chloe hid a smile as Lois grinned. "I know."

She looked over at her, and Chloe stopped hiding her smile to meet her gaze. They just looked at each other for a moment before Lois asked, "Are you happy?"

Chloe looked surprised for a moment, then nodded. "Yeah, I am. In peace, I found happiness."

"Does that mean I can be annoying woman again?"

"I don't know what that means, Lo."

"It means... well, it means that I'm wondering how long it is until I can ask when my kids can expect to get second cousins. Just this morning Jacob asked why he didn't have any, and I had to make up an excuse."

Chloe rolled her eyes. "Oh good lord. None of that until I'm forty, Lois. That's only, what, about four and a half years away? You should at least have to wait an equal amount time to the time I was away."

"Oh come on! I'm not trying to force anything on you, because I learned my lesson there, but I am allowed to make suggestions, right? Consider this me making a suggestion as to something that really makes life special. Plus, you're happy again, and that means I can be annoying without you getting overly annoyed at my attempts to see you as part of a family."

"I am part of a family! _Your_ family!"

"I want somebody to spoil, cuz."

"Spoil me. I like being spoiled."

"You're too big to spoil. I prefer to spoil small people with overly large heads that have recently been born. Ask Bridget. I spoiled her like crazy. Plus, there's this great guy Jimmy knows that I think you would really like."

"Do you not remember my stance on blind dates?"

"I do, which is why I think I could come up with a plan where you two get to know each other over time before I make him ask you out. It's fool proof."

"I'm seriously debating kicking you in the shin, Lo."

"Fine, fine. Don't say I didn't try, though. You deserve the whole package. Not to say what you have is lacking, but my vision of the package includes somebody in your life with a package, if you catch my drift. Don't rule it out. It's worked out well for me, and I know you'd love it."

Chloe rolled her eyes. Life was certainly back to the norm.

The End.


End file.
